In the spirit of Halloween being only a couple days away, I thought I'd share my latest project... A promo video that I created for Halloween Horror Nights! Thanks to Nicholson School of Communication and Universal Orlando Resort, I was able to go to Halloween Horror Nights (for the first time ever) for free! I also got the opportunity to be featured on Universal Orlando's blog and YouTube channel as well as an article on UCF Today! Here is the 5-minute video of the experience! Let me know what you think, and if you haven't gone yet, definitely make sure to check out the 25th Anniversary of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal! You won't regret it :) For our final project in my multimedia composition class, we created a game in Microsoft PowerPoint based off of a written text. The goal was to create an interactive transmedia piece. I chose The Gingerbread Man for my text because it is public domain and I thought it would be fun to create a game out of it. The game is based off of a fictional text, so some of the features and outcomes of the game are not very realistic, but I wanted to make it entertaining more than anything else. The storyline of the new transmedia game is a remix of the original story, so some outcomes and elements of the story are different than the original. For the project, we used skills we learned throughout the course in creating and using different types of multimedia assets. Our games contained procedural rhetoric, but they also incorporated visual, aural, and linguistic rhetorics. I designed many of the slide templates, took original photos, used graphic design and non-system fonts, as well as recorded the sound effects for the game. One of the biggest challenges we ran into as a class was making sure that the PowerPoints work correctly on different computers, different versions of PowerPoint, and different operating systems (Windows and Mac). I made a few di-cut gingerbread men to create the images. I used Preview to edit the photo of the gingerbread man to make the white background transparent. Here is the original photo I took with my phone of the gingerbread man cut out: I layered the gingerbread man over pictures that I found on the Internet (sources below). Cow - http://www.earthintransition.org/ Horse – http://unpics.com/ Chicken – http://www.farmsanctuary.org/ Grass/Trees - http://www.eattheweeds.com/ Hole in ground - http://www.floridainjuryattorneyblawg.com/ River - http://www.bbc.co.uk/ On some of the layered pictures, I used animations to show the gingerbread man running. For some of the other pictures, I used the cut out and placed him around places in my apartment (in the oven, on a plate, and by the door). I also created images for titles in Photoshop for the Powerpoint using one of my favorite non-system (downloaded) fonts, Amatic. I thought that this sans-serif, handwriting font worked well for the titles. Here is the title image: For the body text and links, I used Book Antiqua, which is one of my favorite serif fonts. I chose this font because it looks like a book/story, and I think it works well for the content of the game. For the sound effects, I used some help from my boyfriend, and we created the sound effects together. We did old man/old lady voices, made the noises of the animals, footsteps, etc. I used a song called “Sweet Gingerbread Man” by Geoff Love and His Orchestra for the soundtrack of the game. Here is the game!
For this project on Aural (Sound) Rhetoric in my Multimedia Writing & Composition class, we were instructed to interview 2-3 of our classmates.
We explored the following questions: "What are the most compelling arguments for multimodal composition that you have heard/seen/read/experienced in your own life or work? What makes you think that writers should be encouraged to make meaning on several semiotic channels? Use multimodalities of expression? What are the most compelling arguments against multimodal composing that you have heard/seen/read/experienced? Why do teachers continue to privilege alphabetic composition above other modalities of composition/communication?" From my experiences in this course and throughout my life, I believe that multimodal composition is extremely important. These interviews confirmed that belief, and afforded me an opportunity to work on composing a multimedia element (sound) through editing with Adobe Audition. I am familiar with this program from my experiences in internships and coursework within the Radio/Television major at UCF. However, I had not yet gotten to use this program to edit an interview such as this. The audience of this interview is UCF students. The purpose is to show both the positives and negatives of multimodal composition and how multimedia can be used in learning and writing. The people I interviewed were classmates from my Multimedia Writing & Composition class. I framed the interview in a way that emphasizes the positives of multimodal composition - both starting and ending on a high note. We did not ignore situations and examples where multimodalities can be conflicting or used improperly, but there was more of a focus on what works well. I incorporated royalty-free music clips from Bensound.com, and the last song was an instrumental version of my original song, How To Be Happy. Two sounds were from YouTube - the Wu-Tang "Bring Da Ruckus Instrumental" and "Patrick's Laugh" sound effect. I tried to combine the most fitting sounds I could to go along with the audio. Each time I asked a question, I would play the same clip called, "The Lounge" from Bensound. That sound acts as a transition to let the audience know a new question is being asked. I also tried to match up responses to music I thought fit well with what they were saying. For instance, when Joq talked about the Wu Tang article we looked at in class, I played "Bring Da Ruckus" in the background. Our interviews were recorded in the UCF library. I recorded the introduction and conclusion after completing the interviews. I tried to edit out a lot of the "ums" and "likes" and even some of the breaths/loud background noises, but there were a lot of them, and I felt that some of the idiosyncrasies were essential to showing personality. Without further ado, here is the interview! This is my first project for my Multimedia Writing & Composition class (Playing with words | Designing with text). We were asked to design a song (or part of a song) in Microsoft Word using different fonts.
I got to talk on the air for quite a bit! And even though I was being picked on...it was a lot of fun. I also got to SING on the air! My a cappella group (KeyHarmony) was featured, one of my YouTube covers was featured, and my website (http://www.lexiloumusic.com/) was featured as well! Thank you to The News Junkie for letting me be a part of your show! If you want to hear, check out the first half of this podcast below! Yesterday we entered our family business, The Olive Grove of Venice into the Fast Company: Drive Your Business Forward contest to win a FREE Mercedes Sprinter Van! My mom gave me some footage to work with and edit, and I wrote a script to help give her some ideas/inspiration. My little brother, Alan, filmed a lot of the video. This was a family effort! We found out about the contest pretty late, but we whipped together something that could hopefully have a chance of winning! Our business has really been struggling, and the van would let The Olive Grove go completely mobile to save our business. Please watch our short, 90 second entry to learn more about The Olive Grove. Well the holidays are coming up, and Thanksgiving just passed. So I thought now might be a good time to write a blog post. And I skipped a month of blogging...But, no worries, I am still here! (for whoever is out there reading these). Right around this time of year, if you're in college like me, you're probably stressing out about finals. Your life right now might be going something like this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/the-33-stages-of-finals-week-a078. Lol I love buzzfeed. And for pretty much everyone out there...holiday shopping is probably on your mind. Maybe you went Black Friday shopping, or maybe you are Cyber Monday shopping as I am typing this post. I am more of a browser than a buyer, but I do enjoy a good deal. I am also pretty weird and enjoy watching/listening to commercials; when everyone else is changing the channel, I am paying attention to how the ads are crafted, who they are targeting, and whether or not I think they are effective. Speaking of ads, I wrote TV and radio ads for a lawn mower as an assignment, and although I knew nothing about lawn mowers when I started, I think it came out pretty good! Who knows? Maybe it'll convince you to buy one! If so, I should be getting paid for this :P Anyway, let me know what you think.
Time for a more traditional-style blog post! Texting while driving is a very relevant subject for today's ramblings. On the first of this month, a new law was passed in Florida making texting while driving a secondary offense. The law bans only manual texting while driving (so, you can still use voice-to-text, and technically you aren't "driving" when you're sitting at a stop light/sign or in traffic). I am really curious to see how this law is enforced, if it makes much of a difference in helping prevent accidents, and if people choose to follow the law. I also wonder how officials plan to prove that the driver was actually texting when they were pulled over...will police officers take our phones? Is this going to become an issue of rights and privacy violation? What are your thoughts on the issue? Do you think we should/shouldn't have a law like this? Is it necessary? I recently wrote two PSAs (one for TV and one for radio) for my Writing for the Electronic Media class (see below).
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LEXIThis is my blog for projects throughout college!
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