"Video Killed the Radio Star": Video Project Proposal

For the video project, Mikhaela, Taylor, Kelsey, Katie and I will be working together as part of the Honors Component. We therefore will be doing 2 videos, one that is non-fiction and one that is fiction.

Our non-fiction video will be a How-to video describing how to make cookies. This would involve mixing the dough, baking the cookie and possibly decorating them.

Our fiction video will be a dramatic scene that is a spoof of 24 about a college student racing to finish a paper on time. It will be an over-dramatization of the entire process in the style of 24.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Title Credit: "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles

"If This Was a Movie": Film Analysis

In class we read the following article about how to best stage scense dramatically or comedically. http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/2009/01/flat-is-funny-depth-is-dramatic.html 

It claims that dramatic scenes should adhere to the following rules:

1) create depth within your staging,

2) place the "camera" in such a way as to avoid symmetry and to create diagonals within the frame, avoiding straight lines within the composition completely, and

3) whenever possible, use a darker and more limited palette without a lot of bright colors

I then found screenshots from Pirates of the Caribbean, At Worlds End. (http://framefilter.blogspot.com/2007/05/pirates-of-caribbean-at-worlds-end.html) As it is a pirate movie, it will be inherently dramatic, although comedic scenes, as they frequently do, will find their way in. 

Most of the photos found in that post about Pirates of the Caribbean have a relatively darker palette. In most of the screenshots with the ship, it is sailing forward or away in a diagonal. In addition, any time a character appears he or she is not facing directly into the camera: either their eyes are averted away or their entire face is facing away at an angle.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: If This Was a Movie by Taylor Swift

"Everyday I'm Shuffling": Remix Trailer Proposal

I have always been a fan of the remixed videos, especially the Shining, Scary Mary, and a recent remixed video trailer that turned Harry Potter into a teen comedy: done very convincingly may I add. So, when we were assigned this project, I was excited, but also pretty nervous, because there are some mighty big shoes to fill in terms of remixed trailers.

I eventually decided to remix the Batman Movie "The Dark Knight". This movie is an action movie, and I have decided to change it into a romantic comedy about a man, Harvey who finally got his life together when another man enters the picture and poses as a threat to his relationship with his girlfriend Rachel. It will also deal with Harvey's jealousy toward this mysterious man named Bruce.

This trailer will not deal with Batman, the Joker, or the crime that is associated with Gotham City at all because it is no longer an action movie but rather a RomCom
.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO

"I Don't Care for Your Fairytale": Audio Project Proposal

For the audio project, I will be working with Mikaela Ackerman. We decided to do an audiobook adaptation of a story. The story that we will be making an audio recording is "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" by Jon Scieszka (http://www.shol.com/agita/wolfside.htm)
The story, which is written as a newspaper article will be adapted to be a radio broadcast, to fit the story telling vehicle.
The conflicts of the story is that the Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs story is on trial, and tells his story re: why he was wrongfully accused, and attempts to explain himself and clear his name. He is fighting against the court as well as anyone who thinks he is guilty.
We will record ourselves reading the story and will either make or download the sound effects from free stock sound effects websites.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: Fairytale by Sara Bareilles 

"Vacation, All I Ever Wanted": Vox Pop Proposal

The question that my Vox Pop will focus around is "What is your favorite place to go on vacation?" This would be interesting to listeners because a lot of people really like to travel and see new places, and this Vox Pop could give listeners ideas on where they may like to travel next.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: Vacation by the Go Gos

"I See Your True Colors Shining Through": Paw Print Color Schemes

Here is the color scheme I designed for the paw print assignment.

I liked this color scheme because, first and foremost the colors look nice together. In addition, I situated the colors so that the two lighter colors and the two darker colors were not right next to each other. I put the lighter blue-green on the outside, then the dark purple, then the light pink, and finally the dark green. This makes the scheme pleasing to the eye and ensure that all of the details stand out.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: True Colors by Glee Cast (Originally by Cyndi Lauper)

"If Only I Could Find a Note to Make You Understand": Logo

For our logo design project I have decided to do a fictional company that has to do with music. In case you haven't been able to tell from all of my song lyric titles, music is something I am pretty passionate about, so I thought this would be a great subject to design a logo for. Below are some questions to answer in regards to my logo:

1. Who is the intended audience for your logo?  (client, age group, gender, interests, etc.) The intended audience for my logo would definitely be people who already know a thing or two about music because my company, at the moment called either "Virtuoso" or "Vivace Music Co." will probably be a publishing house who publishes choral works. Therefore, the people who will interact with my company will recognize music symbols used in my logos.
2. Does your logo reflect design trends often targeted to your intended audience?  Do you want it to? A lot of logos in the music industry focus on specific instruments and glamorizing music, or on using fancy typeface/ incorporated music symbols into their type to indicate what they are about. As a choral publishing house, my company would be more concerned about the actual music than the glitz and the glam that goes along with it, so I want to keep my logo simple and to the point.
3. If you had to summarize the style you want for your logo in a single word, what would it be? Polished. I would summarize the style of my logo in the single word polished because choral music is all about appearing polished and together as if a single voice.
4. Look at your sketch.  How will it read at a small size?  Could you simplify the design so that the basic shape will still be easy to see at a small size? I think that most of my sketches would be readable and easily distinguished at a small size especially since those I am catering to should be able to rerecognize the different parts easily.

All together, I am extremely excited to start work on this logo package project!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes ft Adam Levine

"I Wanted to See Something That's Different": Design Principles

This weekend we had a reading about three important design principles:
1. Limit Your Fonts
2. Limit Your Colors
3. Contrast, Contrast, Contrast

I think that the M&T Bank website is a great example of good design. Click the picture below to see the website for yourself.

Side Note: M&T Bank is a bank that apparently doesn't exist in North Carolina? All I know is that I can't do any banking other than when I go home to Maryland, which is considerably annoying. 

Anyway, I think this website demonstrates a lot of the important things discussed in the blog entries about design.  It has one font for the logo, which only appears once in the top corner, one font for their tag lines such as "Understanding what's important" and "Have you raised the green flag?" that is a little more stylized, and then a standard typeface for the rest of the text.  The color scheme is also extremely effective because a variety of values in the green family are represented, but a number of the links are blue which compliments green nicely. The site has a white background, and the green accents provide nice contrast. In addition, the area where you log in to M&T Bank, which is arguably one of the most important aspects of the website, is in a light green box and this contrast against the white, while subtle, is still effective. And lastly, the Open Now link situated in the picture in the middle of the page stands out because of the gradient fade that makes our brain perceive it as three dimensional and the fact that it creates nice contrast  against the white background and the darker green of Easy Save.

All together, the M&T Bank website isn't overly fancy or complicated, but it is a bank whose goal is to convince the consumer of how simple it would be to bank with them, so this fits the message they are trying to send. When they use color, and different fonts, they use it well in a way that fits with their scheme and overall message.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: "Different" by Acceptance

"A Girls Just As Hot as the Clothes She Chooses": Hats and Scarves Monthly

Today we were assigned the task of find two different fonts to use on the cover of the imaginary Hats and Scarves Monthly and we were given a picture to go with it as well.

I downloaded Janda Curly-Girl from dafont.com because I thought that it had a nice swirly quality to it while still preserving legibility and without getting too stylized. I chose to make the "Hats and Scarves" in this typeface and I chose to make the color a grey to match the hat and scarf that the model is wearing. Because Janda Curly-Girl is a Serif font, I wanted to use a Sans Serif font for my contrasting font so I used a simpler Candara font for "Monthly." I think overall these fonts combine well to create a cover that could likely work for a magazine called Hats and Scarves Monthly.
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: "Fashion" by Lady Gaga

"Filling the Darkness With Order and Light": Blending

Today in class we learned about layers and how to use textures to blend them into the original picture. I decided to use the Galileo picture I took on one of the first days of class. I used blurred color streaks.jpg and the Multiply blending feature at 56%. I then found a picture of a Black Hole with its surrounding stars from the NASA website, and used the Darken blending feature at 26%. This is my result. I am happy with it because the changes I made are significant to the content of the picture.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title Credit: Stars from the Broadway Musical "Les Miserables"

"All Around the World": Combining Images

Today we were tasked with Photoshopping a person from our portrait series onto a stock background. 

Here are the original pictures:

 I compiled these two pictures together and ended with this. I adjusted the brightness and contrast of both the subject and the background in order to make them fit together relatively well. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title Credit: All Around the World, Red Hot Chili Peppers

"A Change Would Do You Good": Photoshop Part II

This week we were tasked with taking portraits and then editing them in Photoshop using the tools we've learned. This was interesting to me because it is amazing how different a picture can look just by doing simple edits.


Changing the Color 
For this assignment I used the following picture:

We were supposed to choose one part of our chosen picture and change the color of it, be it hair, clothes, or an object. I chose to turn the guitar a pink-purple color. I also adjusted the vibrancy.

Selecting And Editing Only Part of the Picture
For this part of the assignment we were supposed to choose a picture and change the background to black and white while leaving the rest of the picture in color. I chose to use this picture because I really like the colors on my subject and wanted to pop them.

This is my final product. After editing it, I realized that the bright colors in the background nicely complimented the colors on Libby, my model, and I actually prefer the original. I made Libby more vibrant in this edit and if I were to edit it again, in order to have the best picture possible, I would probably still make the original more vibrant but I wouldn't make the background black and white. 

Glamour Shot
We then learned about how to edit pictures of blemishes and other things that are done to pictures before they are printed in the magazine. This is the picture I chose to use for this part of the assignment.

Firstly, I chose to crop the picture so that the car and sign were no longer in the background, since it was a glamour shot. Then I removed some minimal blemishes from the model's face. I enhanced the color of her eyes in order to make them pop and then adjusted the vibrancy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title Credit: "A Change Would Do You Good" by Sheryl Crow

"Today I Don't Feel Like Doing Anything": Photo Story Proposal

Our first major assignment in Mediated Communications will be to photograph a Photo Story. A Photo Story is, in essense a collection of varying pictures that portray a central idea. For the Honors Component we were told that our photo story topic should "capture something about life in this particular moment in history" much like the Farm Security Administration photo stories did in the 1930s.

As I thought about what my generation may be known for once we are considered history, I couldn't stop thinking about how lazy we have become due to technology. Although some people have argued that "laziness promotes innovation" I fear that this innovation may be our downfall; if we continue to turn to technology every time we want to cut a corner we may reach a point where we no longer need face-to-face communication or to even leave our apartment. This will be what my photo story will focus on. We don't think twice about using technology to cut corners but this photo story will demonstrate how a person can go an entire day without ever leaving their home.

My working headline for this photo story will be "An Indolent Truth" playing off of the famous Al Gore movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Indolent is a synonym of lazy.

I will shoot this photo story in either my own apartment or a friend's apartment in North College Terrace, depending on whom I choose to be my subject.

This photo story will present a few examples of this and then allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions as to how serious of a problem this topic is. I will not be presenting dramatized portrayals of how technology can make us lazy so as to avoid it becoming too editorial. This will, however, be more of a photo essay than a photo story because I will be portraying a point of view. Although you may not know one singular person who does every single thing I will photograph in one day. the scenes I will portray will not be unfamiliar to anyone who views my photo story. Compiling them together in a photo essay will provide the examples needed to provoke viewers to think about the issue at hand even without having a lengthy written argument.

The idea that I plan to capture for my lead photo is the fact that we can Google virtually anything. Information is literally at our finger tips so we don't have to work very hard to find an answer In order to portray this idea I want to take a picture that shows textbooks being rejected in favor of the internet. I have not yet worked out how this will be set up, but I am in the process of developing my ideas for this picture.

Altogether, I am pretty excited for this project. I think this is an idea that is very important in this day and age and I think it will be fun to photograph.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: Lazy Song by Bruno Mars

"A Change Would Do You Good": Photoshop

Today we learned about photo editing in class, specifically about using adjustment in Photoshop. We were given the assignment to edit two pictures, one realistically and one unrealistically. 

Realistic
Here is my original picture. I liked the lighting but I thought the shadows could be improved upon and that the subject of the picture was a little vague so cropping would help. 

This is my finished product after I edited it. I cropped it so that the subject, my friend Caitlin sitting on the swing, is highlighted using the Rule of Thirds because she is placed in the right third of the frame. Because this picture is a conveying a pleasant idea with a beautiful location I used the Brightness/Contrast adjustment to change the color of the picture to make it have a happier softer feel as opposed to the more intense shadows and colors of the original. I then used the Vibrance adjustment to make the flowers in the background a little brighter. 

Unrealistic

In this picture the Be Extraordinary sign is clearly the subject and because it is the subject, the picture could be used as a promotional material or adversitsement for HPU. Here is the original.

In this edited version I used the posterize tool as well as a few other adjustment editing techniques to make the colors extreme, bright, and unrealistic in a fun way. I lowered the Vibrance adjustment in order to make the picture have more black space and then used the Hue/Saturation adjustment to pull out some of the yellows. This all allowed the Be Extraordinary words to pop  which is good because it is the purpose of this picture. Because the purpose of this picture is the sign its okay that the rest of the picture is somewhat unrealistic.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title Credit: "A Change Would Do You Good" by Sheryl Crow

"This is Home"

This weekend we had the assignment to read about photo composition. Good photos aren't usually just taken. In fact, most of the time they are planned. Granted, an amazing photo can be accidentally snapped, but the best photographers look at the composition of a potential picture while snapping it. They consider simplicity, the Rule of Thirds, line, balance, framing, and avoiding mergers. All of the information about these concepts comes from Kodak Guidelines for Better Photographic Composition.

With this in mind, I decided that my subject of the pictures I'd take would be North College Terrace, where I am living this year. I took a lot of pictures and then chose the 4 pictures that I thought best represented four of the six principles above.

Simplicity
When you take a picture, you want to make sure that the background isn't too complicated. The more complicated the background is, the less the subject stands out. With this in mind, I took this picture. 

I took a few pictures of this Security Blue Light outside my building, but no matter where I took the picture from a tree, a gate or a building seemed to get in the way. I then decided to take it from a lower angle which allowed it to stand out against the plain blue sky and therefore appear as a more compelling, clear picture.

Rule of Thirds 
According to the Rule of Thirds when composing a picture you should divide it into thirds both horizontally as well as  vertically. The subject of the picture should then be aligned with one of the four intersections of lines. This makes a more dynamically compelling picture.

 In this picture, the Be Extraordinary sign is in the upper left intersection of lines. I chose to put it in this position so that the eye would take in the sign and then see the green grass and the pruned shrubs/bushes, which one may classify as extraordinary. The sign is still the focus, however, I also put the sign in the upper left of the picture because if it is in, say, the bottom right, the road and cars would distract even more than the single white car already slightly does.

Lines
Lines can be used in photo composition in a variety of different ways: diagonal lines create interesting composition, leading lines can be used to emphasize the subjects, S curves are compelling, and more. 

I like this picture because it uses the gentle S curves which is aesthetically interesting, and this S curve works as a diagonal line to lead to the subject of the picture, which is the sun in the upper right of the picture. The viewer's eye follows the road down the hill and is then caught by the diagonal rays of the sun.

Framing
Using things already in the scene to frame the subject is a very effective way to emphasize the subject and draw the viewers eye to it. Framing can be used to ensure that the viewer sees the part of the picture that you want them to see.

 The focus of this picture is the front porch and rocking chair of this town-home. The tree, which appears naturally in the scene, is used to frame the house and makes it obvious that this porch area is the subject. The light also hits in the right way to emphasize that this porch is the subject.

So there we go! Just four examples of photo composition principles found in the area surrounding my apartment complex. It really does show that by keeping good photo composition in mind, interesting photos can be created out of less than interesting subjects.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Credit: "This is Home" by Switchfoot

"Who Lights the Stars At Night?"

When I took this picture, my intent was to shoot it from an angle in order to indicate the perspective of the person or thing that Galileo's telescope is pointing at. Because of this, however, the size of portions of his body do look disproportioned. His head look much smaller than the rest of his body. This allows me to emphasize the scientific implications of his discoveries made as opposed to his actual ideas.

The frame of my picture is, for the most part, filled with my subject. However, the background is cluttered and can be distracting. On the other hand, trying to remove the building from the background would require shooting from a different angle may eliminate the possibility of shoot from the perspective of the thing or person being viewed by Galileo.

With this analysis in mind, I went back out to take some more pictures of the Galileo statue.

Although I couldn't continue with the idea of taking the picture from under the telescope, when I took this picture I decided to take it from a low angle because the twisted nature of the statue makes taking the picture from a low angle very interesting.

By stepping back a little from the statue I was able to get the upper third of his body: his head, hands and shoulders, as well as the telescope above the building and bench. This is an improvement over my last picture because I believe the head and the telescope are the most important parts of Galileo and thus the sculpture, so the picture should emphasize them and make them stand out.

The angle of the picture also still brings up the question of what exactly he is looking at because the telescope points out of frame and the line of the telescope naturally leads your eye in that direction.

Altogether I like this picture because it allowed me to take my ideas from the first picture and somewhat apply them to my second in a more aesthetically pleasing way.
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title Source: "Galileo (Someone Like You)" by Josh Groban

"Nice To Meet You"

Hi! I'm Amy and I'm a Strategic Communications major at High Point University. I'm in the Honors Component of COM 1111: Mediated Communication Systems. I have a little experience in some of the computer software that we will be using this semester: Photoshop, iMovie, and a small amount of Blogger experience. I am by no means a master, however, so I am excited to polish my skills, and learn new skills on both the mediums that I already know as well as one that I am not as familiar with: Audacity, InDesign, and more.

One thing that I really want to learn through this class this semester is designing logos through InDesign. I worked this summer for a Strategic Communication firm and the main idea that was emphasized was branding and the importance of your logo, color scheme, and other aspects of your website, business cards, and letterhead correlating with what the business is all about. I am excited to try my hand at this!

I love music, so my blog entry titles will all be from songs. Today's is Gavin Degraw's "Nice to Meet You."