Final Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zibfBBHFGcE

 

       It really took me longer this time to form my idea about the project. The idea is so abroad that I got lost. At the beginning I thought too much about the word “narrative”, taking very seriously about the structure of the project and the meaning behind what I would do. The result was I felt I could hardly do anything with my limited imagination and skills (now I realize it is just because I spent my whole thanksgiving staying home writing paper and watching anime, my mind became a block of wood).

       I started to think about my holiday. The game vs. Michigan was the past Saturday. On the Thanksgiving Day, I looked out from my window (I live on 10^th floor), there were only several cars parked in the lot, the park lot look very empty and there were no people outside. It was the first time I saw an empty parking lot of my apartment building. Then on the game day, I was waked up by people outside, I looked out from the window again, wow it was super crowded with Buckeyes. I could make the project about how the people make the difference, but…………….…….I didn’t take a single picture on the game day. That idea was abandoned then with a pity.

       Then I got stuck again. I wanted to get help from the Richard Serra Verb List, then it didn’t help. So I started to repeat over and over again about my no idea about this project and finally I started to take videos while I was outside after class to keep a record in order to review my day to see if there would be an inspiration, then I got it.

       My friend, Coco, was with me after class one day and we were about to a Chinese restaurant, I took my iphone out and started to shoot video. She knew that I was going to have a project, but she was always asking questions like “why you take that?” “why not this?” “I have a idea, you should make a movie for me.” “In the movie I will have two handsome guys as candidates for boyfriend” I knew she was only blathered so I started to video her. “are you videotaping me?” “no, no me!” “Don’t shoot video of me………” Then she felt a little bit shy of being videotaped, haha.

       Then I found that she really liked to say “Don’t shoot video of me!” But she also liked watching the video I took of her. So I decide to record as much as possible of that sentence and put them together. I turned out to be that I waited hearing her to say that words, if I succeed my smirk sound were also recorded. Later she knew my idea, and she started to say that sentence in a very weird tone in Chinese, which was………..really unacceptable for me I swear.

       What was interesting for me or maybe also for her was that, at the beginning, she suffered and I enjoyed. Later I suffered and she enjoyed. All what she says in the video were in Chinese, but there is only one sentence meaning “Don’t shoot video of me anymore!” I won’t say too much about the video, and I believe one watching the video can get a litte bit about what I feel. Anyway, to be with my friends is a lot of fun.

Failure Paper

         My biggest failure this semester was my unskilled use of the techniques required to use in the project assignments, for example, the Photoshop (MP2). Personally I am a software “idiot” in nature and lack of creativity after these years studying accounting. The failure indeed discounted my ideal effect to what it ended up to be. Although the final draft reflected my effort in creativity, it was a little bit of far from it was supposed to be. If I were allowed for more time at the beginning, I would put more effects in studying how to use Photoshop, which is a very useful tool in the real life also.

       What I learned in this failure firstly was that I should practice more in what I’m not good at. Then I remember I lose one layer of the four due to my carelessness in reading the grading rubric. So I turned out to be very carefully later. What I wanted to say is that I was not a careless person before; maybe my mind is on the Mars these several months, because this was not my only failure due to not paying attention to the instructions.

       My biggest success was that I was hit by the inspiration of MP5 after being mad for a whole evening due to no idea coming to my mind. Then I decidedly pick up the inspiration of the brown color topic and finished it in a short time. The important thing was that I enjoyed the process.

       Yes I learned that some details in my life can be small accidents which will enable me enjoy the plain happiness. If I did search my room for the topic I will never know I can make a collection of brown clothes and accessories. There must be some more interesting things than I haven’t paid attention to.

       I would redo my project 2 if I know more about the Photoshop. I will add one more layer definitely, but what is more important is that I really want to make it reflect at least 95% of my feeling about a late summer morning with fresh air, warm sunshine, the young students and the surprise of discovering the cirrus.

Final Project Brainstorming

I don’t have a specific idea about the narrative but I can come with some method doing it without referring to other resources, those are:

Photography: just put the pictures together can be the whole story line. I can take picture recording how a sequence happens and put the pictures together in a fine way

Voice track with music

Video just recording what happened in the narrative

Mini film: can be dramatic: a heroic beginning with tricky ending is funny. May need to put subtitle to make the narrative easy to understand

Manga: very challenging for me…….

 

I probably will use the video method or photography. However I haven’t come up with what narrative to do, so the structure of the project is unclear now.

Micro Project 5- Brown Me

 

 

 

 

 

 

         My action words are MIX and LAYERING. The word MIX looks easier for me but it is not that easy when I started brainstorming what can I do. Toothpaste was always coming to my mind these days for the project after I saw a report about taking a shower using toothpaste. I could not get rid of it. The word of LAYERING is harder to be connected to my daily life. I could just come up with some image of rock layer and carpet.

         The object I finally select is the brown color system in my daily life. When I entered my bedroom someday, I saw my leopard blanket on my bed, piling up with my brown pants and light brown skirt. I started to think about how many browns I had in my room. So I started to search everywhere and got what I have in the picture.

         They are the items I use very frequently, and I was surprised by how I use it and how I like it when things are in brown. I was also surprise about that how beautiful thing look like when they are place in an order such as in brown color system. When they are separate, none of them looks special but when I collect them from different corners in my apartment, they looked pretty powerful and attractive.

         There are some sweaters, pants, shorts, pairs of boots, slippers, belts, a sling bag, a travel case, a hair ring, pairs of gloves, a shirt, a scarf, a t-shirt, and a cherry wood comb. Many of them are in leopard pattern, so that’s why I’m kind of living in brown. There used to be a period when I want everything I use to be leopard since it had been so popular worldwide.

         First I got everything I have mixed in a random matter to make a mess look, and it is in the first picture. Then to make it more joyful I open my suit case, and put some clothes, shoes and small item in it to exhibit a travelling look. Travelling is important for me since I have travel between China and U.S. for many times and I’m very skillful in packing up. It looks like a vacation preparation or a relaxed pattern in hotel, which made me lost in the fantasy of getting rid of school for five minutes. But when I realized the semester would still last for more than one month I indeed went depressed for another five minutes.

         Then I decide to see how I would look in all brown. The easiest way was to make outfit looks and it is a kind of making layering from the mix. This process was joyful for me because I had made a big brown mess in my room so cleaning it up was going to take a while. But after I made the first outfit an documented it, I could put back everything in that picture to where I collected them from, such as the closet, the hanger, the bathroom, a suitcase, and the cabinet. The process was made in perfect order. However, after I took picture of one outfit and put everything back, I realized I should have used that pairs of boots instead of this pair. This made me mad because I had to do it again to gain the best effect I wanted. I took about ten pictures then selected five best of them. It was annoying when I found something did not belong to the brown family appeared in my picture, such as the wire of the power strip, a corner of my super colorful carpet. So I removed all of them from the view of the camera, and it looked better. The whole process took about one hour, which I thought should be about forty minutes. I like my outfit part since it is interesting when the first time I made a shape of myself using clothes only, I really enjoyed the process. I also appreciate the travelling part which brought me five-minute-long vacation.

 

MP4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7N98tck14w&feature=youtu.be

These pieces of sound are recorded in my apartment. I wanted to record the sound of some small things happening around me to reflect my daily life. There are boiling water and the click sound of the button when I use my kettle, the running water when I wash my hand, and the knock sound when my roommate place her Chanel nail polish bottle when she was coloring her nail (I love that color). I share a lot of things with my roommate: our nail polishes, our snacks, and our tea (we boil water and make the tea), we tried different facial mask and so on. My apartment is a typical girls' house with a nice roommate and that is want I want to reflect in the project.

Blog 9

Carver’s article tells a story about the wife’s “childhood sweetheart” spend a night is the couple’s house. The story ends very suddenly when Robert taught the husband to draw a Cathedral. The husband was apparently dislike Robert and was jealous of him because Robert’s close relationship with the wife. I can understand the husband because I would be mad under that situation. But I think at the end of the article, the husband’s emotion has been remitted, that was probably because Robert was a good person. This is how I understand the storyline. The author merely described what happened in the past, what was going on in the house, and what the conversations was. The way the story was narrated enabled me to think about, exactly feel, what changes were taking place to the husband. It was just a story.

 

As long as the author didn’t describe much emotional things about the wife and the visitor, it was hard for me to understand what is going on with their thinking. How I can develop an opinion was to through the husband’s point of view, which was the only focus of the story, I think. So I really what to know what exactly happen to the husband when they were drawing, how the drawing change the person’s opinion.

Wallace

The article is about to think with freedom. As a commencement address, Wallace’s speech is shocking at first then becomes very inspiring. I agree with that “the exact same experience can mean two totally different things to two different people…” Because of the difference conditions we grew up, although we are receiving a kind of “standard” education, the way we think differs a lot. One ridiculous experience I have was that through all my middle high and senior high school, we are asked to do some literature comprehension. The comprehension means, in the exam, a sentence of a literature work is picked up from the reading we have on the exam paper, and we were asked to answer to question suck as: what is the author thinking about? Or what might be the reason why the author said this? It was not unusual for me to get a zero on these questions. My answer never matched the point of view of the person who provided the standard answer to these questions. The author didn’t provide any answer, but someone else was telling us that “the author was thinking this way” But how? How could someone say no to my comprehension on a literature without the author say no? We need some attention and awareness and discipline and also to truly care about others when we want to think with freedom, but if there is someone telling us to think in a exact way, I might not be able to follow.

 

I may not be able to understand the young fish and old fish story might very well. By saying “this is water”, does the author mean education? Or it is just a kind of awareness? Well, there is no exact answer, I believe.