To sum up my experience, is difficult. I learned so much, and Teresa Hughes inspired us all so much, while the class moved so fast that sometime  I think I my brain couldn’t contain it all. My appreciation of media as art, and art as media grew and took on a different perspective as I challenged myself to come up with what I thought was interesting imagery in my creations.

This final project started as one thing and evolved into something else… a visual collage of images that touched my heart and told my own story of how much I love my pets/animals and how I think others who have pets know that same feeling.

I tried to show how close we get to our pets and how they are the only thing on this planet that give us unconditional love, no matter what we may do to them (you know some people should not have pets, but that’s another story).

Anyway… This is how we enjoy them and how they give back without words so many messages that we are their world. I thank them for being there, everyday… and if you’re a pet owner, you do too.

For this project I decided to create yet another humorous video featuring a lousy mid-day public access talk show and an even lousier guest who has a few words to say about a very random topic. Originally I had a drastically different idea but after being unable to find any willing actors I decided to do something simpler. Something that only involved just me which was particularly challenging due to the fact that I couldn’t actually star in it myself so I came up with the idea of a talk show with a guest who had a censored voice. A lot of ridiculous ideas came to mind about what he should talk about including hipster scarves, gluten-free bread, maple syrup, and others until I thought about what would be something everybody loves nowadays and shortly after I came up with the idea featured in the video. Then came production. Modifying his voice was surprisingly easy. I searched the internet for a voice modifier until I realized that audacity could modify it. After that it was pretty simple I just had to select out the guest talking points and change the pitch. Then came finding all the images online which I needed and then putting everything together in a video. I tried to make the audio at some points cut off suddenly so it would make it seem like it was a low-budget show. All in all i’m pretty satisfied with the whole project which miraculously came out at a run time of 2 minutes and 59 seconds which is one second before the deadline I would like to point out. I hope whoever sees this enjoys it and make sure that when it comes down to who had the best final project, you’ll remember this and think to yourself; “yeah his was good but i’m thinking that other one was slightly better”.

Hello again,

It feels strange to be done with my final project for this class. It was a bit of a struggle to get it done, but I am happy with the result. This term has been all about problem solving. I am new to the art, traditional or digital. I have learned to work to my own abilities. I wanted to tell a simple tale with a good moral in it. I chose to build  off of the mythos of the FAOLADH (irish werewolves). I have always hated the negative stigma placed upon wolves. I get that people fear what they do not know, but in this day and age, with all the information in the world in our phones, we still make ignorant, fearful decisions. Sometimes the thing you fear the most might be your only hope. The story is about three little kids on the way to the main township from their rural home. A shady childsnatcher sees them, but before he can act he is stooped by the faoladh that patrol the Queen’s road. This was also a story my brother used to tell me when I was afraid to walk to school by myself. I hope you all like it and maybe down the road I will do a more fleshed out version. I wish you all the best and much love to my fellow indigenius people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zwt2UDIQ8Q&feature=youtu.be

This is a goofy slideshow I made for my final project in Introduction to Media Arts.  It’s a story about a boy who keeps getting bullied at school.  It was a really fun project to put together and went together a lot faster than I thought it would.

The most challenging part was coordinating the timing between all the slides with the music and sound effects.  I had to splice sound effects where they would sound best in the music, I had to time slides to match certain spots in the music, and also had to time other sound effects with specific slides.  On top of that, I had to make each slide had a proper amount of time exposure to fit the priority of the slide.  So it was a tedious process that took a lot of refining.

Overall, I am happy with the outcome.  All the sound effects are fitting and I am happy with the song choice and felt it fit the comical arrangement I was looking for.

By: EJ Olson

For my final, I wanted to work more with video and really try and hone my video production skills. I’m already familiar with Adobe After Effects, but my Premiere skills are lacking. I also focused on really using what I’ve learned in my Concepts of Visual Literacy class and merge them with the technical skills acquired during our Media Arts course.

I attempted to build suspense, using a few quicker cuts, extreme close ups and a heavier, anxious soundtrack. The POV shots are used to help the viewer feel attached to the scene, and hopefully feel some tension and anticipation. As I reach for this new, mysterious weapon, the audience is hopefully asking, “what’s he going to do with that??” Of course, we find out I only wanted a closer shave!

Production for this was difficult (shooting oneself is always a challenge—sorry Teresa!) and editing took several days, as the saber effects are a frame by frame process. It was tedious, but rewarding. I learned just how difficult it is to keep continuity when cutting these scenes together, but I think I did a quality job (for the most part, I had some issues in the first 15 seconds or so).

I’m looking forward to video production next term!

Music:

“Heavy Brigade” courtesy of PurplePlanet.com

“Live (A Little)” – My Mantle

This project and I did not get along at first. We had a lot of ups and downs but in the end it all came together. This is probably my favorite project of them all because we had a lot of free reign to do what we wanted. I choose to do clear cutting because it is something that I feel is becoming a problem. Oregon is one of the smallest states with the largest logging production. There are places all around I used to hike/bike that were surrounded by trees and now there is nothing but stumps. The sad fact about this is the timber being cut down it’s not even for locals, it is being hauled to China because apparently it’s cheaper that way.

This project was truly a lot of fun in the beginning I thought I was never going to get it done. Problem after problem kept coming up and I was certain I was doomed. For starters if you’re going to hike up a mountain to take pictures don’t leave your keys in your car and proceed to lock it….with the camera inside. If you are going to interview someone, always make sure you have a back-up, just in case the first one cancels…last minute. Even with all the problems and I just want to quit moments it really was a lot of fun, nearly froze to death on a mountain, but fun:)

http://oregonforests.org/content/ask-forester

Had lots of fun with this one as well…it took about 2 and a half days, but that was mainly because i kept getting interrupted and had a lot of math homework to do. I messed up and redid the recording tons of times…if i kept all the originals in there would be a lot of expletives in there for every time a screwed up a sentence. Anyways I covered a topic that is kinda close to home for me because of how much I love music. I curbed some of my harsher opinion because I didn’t have time for everything, and i felt they didn’t add much to the project.

Overall i covered what i wanted to cover, but 3 minutes barely lets me scratch the surface of my thoughts on music and the industry that is poisoning it. I’m also not going to get into that here as it would take a very long time to type it all out as well, and would probably put me over the 500 word limit.

Maybe I’ll talk about that in a future blog if i decide to do anything with it other than use it for school.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3TyX7_fb81ZNG8yU1FKRldoZFk/view?usp=sharing

Had lots of fun with this one as well…it took about 2 and a half days, but that was mainly because i kept getting interrupted and had a lot of math homework to do. I messed up and redid the recording tons of times…if i kept all the originals in there would be a lot of expletives in there for every time a screwed up a sentence. Anyways I covered a topic that is kinda close to home for me because of how much I love music. I curbed some of my harsher opinion because I didn’t have time for everything, and i felt they didn’t add much to the project.

Overall i covered what i wanted to cover, but 3 minutes barely lets me scratch the surface of my thoughts on music and the industry that is poisoning it. I’m also not going to get into that here as it would take a very long time to type it all out as well, and would probably put me over the 500 word limit.

Maybe I’ll talk about that in a future blog if i decide to do anything with it other than use it for school.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3TyX7_fb81ZNG8yU1FKRldoZFk/view?usp=sharing