Dear Reader,

First of all, thank you in advance for taking the time to read my portfolio. It is my goal to explain the experience I have had in this class in a personal, transparent manner. As a freshman, every day brings some new experience. Last semester was certainly a journey for me, leaving my small hometown for the comparatively alien world of Chapel Hill. Up to this point, my classes have been difficult and mildly interesting. Entrepreneurial Web Writing with Professor Dan Anderson has been a completely different experience. To understand the effect this class has had on me, you first must understand where I was coming from in the beginning of this semester. I had a means-to-an-end mentality about my college education. I signed up for this class because I needed to satisfy the literary arts graduation requirement. Luckily, in the span of a few weeks, I began to reconsider my perception of education. I began to feel like the experience of learning was more important than the grades and credit that result from taking a class. Where I once considered general classes as something to "get out of the way," I started to realize that the classes outside of my major were the ones that I enjoyed the most. It is a great feeling to be excited about a class; it makes the daily routine much brighter.

Before I describe the class as a work experience, I think it is critical that I shed light on one of the dimensions of the class that has affected me the most: discussion. Throughout the semester, we have read various articles online, watched videos, and read a short book called Crowdsourcing. Our subsequent discussions have had a tremendous effect on my throughout the semester. They have never been restrictively structured, the conversations are usually started by Professor Anderson, and then my classmates and I contribute to the current topic or raise new points. Every single discussion has been food for thought. We have covered topics like intellectual property, the effects of technology on all forms of information exchange, and the power of diverse crowds of individuals in the context of "prosuming." At times, we started our discussion with a specific point. Sometimes we started with a vague concept, a question. All of the questions we have raised, the clear and the abstract, have affected me in some way. While my reaction to some may have been one of mere interest, others triggered general epiphanies (like my shifting perception about my education). One of my favorite discussions related to the power of diversity. Reading about the freakish, unexpected power of diverse "Average Joes" outperforming experts was the realization of a truth I had noticed at some point in my life. Realizing the power of personal diversity led me to adjust my goals for the future. I hope to diversify my educational experience at Carolina, knowing that I enjoy trying new things and that I will only benefit from it. Sure, I want to study Computer Science, but expanding into other fields will only help me grow as a person. This semester has been a unique learning experience. By some stroke of luck, it seems like widely applicable topics that can relate to all of my classes have been brought up in our English class. All of my realizations, my epiphanies, have been positive and perception-altering... and they have all been a result of our discussions.

Venturing away from that potentially abstract topic, I hope to communicate a clear image of my work experience thus far. Our class is basically a workshop style seminar. We all have our continual works in progress and new assignments come along every week or two. It is such a nice change from the sometimes grey experience of the average lecture. We do interact with our professor extensively, but we also work amongst ourselves to an equal degree. Classmates seek and give help and input. We offer one another honest, constructive critiques that allow our work to grow in ways we might not have seen. Since this class is a workshop, it has been the first time that I have basically been able to pace myself independently of the rest of class. It is nice to be able to choose what to work on and when to do it, following a nonlinear progression of work. Additionally, it is the first time in college that I have taken an active role in class, talking openly with our professor and feeling no need to hold any thoughts back. I would say that my communication skills and my work ethic have improved. Beyond that, I have witnessed a lot of interesting ideas being "bounced" around the class, which has led my mind to wander outside of the box at times.

Most importantly, of all the ways this class has affected me, it has done so most profoundly in granting me a creative release. The degree of freedom is incredible. There are no limitations on our creativity. In fact, the open-ended nature of the assignments opens the doors to all avenues of art and expression. From this point on, I will make a point to sign up for some kind of class that allows me to explore my creativity. It has done wonders for my interest in school and my happiness in general. I have learned to value creativity as a means for personal growth, a way to set off on intellectual exploration without the blandness of textbook-learning. At this point, we have only experimented with writing and audio, but we are moving on to video in the near future. The key is that the technology at our hands is an all-powerful medium through which we can bring any idea to life. The flexibility and power of technology, applied to all things from industry to art, is something that is already shaping the future and will continue to do so. As a result of the creative side of this class, I have noticed that I am trying to extend my creativity to other classes. I am no longer satisfied by turning in boring, just-completed assignments; I find myself wanting to go beyond what is expected of me in order to produce something that I actually value. I attribute this growth completely to this class, because it has been one of few classes to not only allow permit but encourage creative endeavors.

This class has obviously raised my creative standards, but it has also improved my self-expectations in all of my work. I have learned the power of seeking critiques through other individuals. I now understand the power of making revisions, even when it may seem unneeded. I feel like the creative process and the process of making revisions in this class will bleed over into my other work, allowing me to set and achieve a higher standard for my future work as a student and as a person in general. This class has given me a fresh take on learning, right when I was beginning to feel a little burnt out... after one semester! It has not been easy, and as we move into the future, the bar will only be raised. I look forward to the challenges I will face though, because I know that when I am done with this class that I will have completed a rich learning experience. Furthermore, I will have something exciting to show for it. (The work we are doing is not the kind that you throw away once it's graded.) In the end, I am glad to have taken the chance of signing up for an English class that I did not "need," as directed by educational officials. I have learned as much from this class as I have in those required of me.

Thanks for reading!

Zach Cross

Our first project was a pleasure from the beginning. While writing is not something I consider being in my comfort zone, music definitely is... Not because I know anything about music, but simply because I love it. Needless to say, I was very excited by the prospect of creating a playlist of some of my favorite music. After the initial euphoria brought upon by an assignment that was actually interesting (one of the firsts in my college career), I realized that the task at hand would not be easy. Sure, I was excited, but that did not grant me the ability to complete this assignment without much thought.

The chief difficulty lied in selecting the music that I wanted to write about. My first impulse was to list my favorite songs and then forcibly manufacture some kind of meaning to attach to them in the context of the assignment. However, I realized that such a process would just make a mediocre playlist, so I thought about it for a long time. In the days following the assignment, I carried my Zune around campus in an attempt to digest my collection of music as a whole. With thirty gigabytes of music, that turned out to be pretty impractical. In the end, I decided it would be best to establish some criteria for making my selection. It seemed to me that if I was composing a playlist, the songs should be diverse enough to hold the interest of the reader (and listener). Additionally, I did not want to fabricate a write-up for a song just because I liked it. I decided that I would only choose songs that had some meaning to me, whether it was in the form of lyrics or simply my emotional reaction to listening.

The First Draft - "Life in Music"

In my first pass at the assignment, having made a selection of songs, I focused on generating my written content. I put a lot of energy into describing my perceptions of each song -- my intellectual and emotional reception of each one. That work paid off. In the end, I was very pleased with the progress I had made. I felt that my writing had some meaning in itself, that it was not mere rambling. My writing was a little verbose, but it was not airy "filler" text. I received some good feedback from my peers and from Professor Anderson. The only critique seemed to be that I should have mentioned more about the musical elements of each song. In my eyes, the biggest problem with my first draft was the boring presentation, its homogeneous presentation. I used the same layout for each song. I listed the title, band, and a link to the lyrics followed by a YouTube video. Then, after every YouTube video, I had a wall of text. Though the music itself could be interesting, I felt as though the repetition of visual elements might demean the overall experience of reading the playlist.

The Second Major Revision - "Life in Music"

After a series of minor changes, mostly relating to grammar and flow, I shifted my focus from the written dimensions of the playlist to the visual side. I made a title image for each song in Photoshop. I think this phase of development reflected my interest in the music I chose, because I put significant thought into each image. I did not reuse a font or a color scheme. I even tried to toss up the layout of the text within each image. It took a surprising amount of time for me to feel satisfied, but in the end I felt like I had some genuinely awesome images. Each one related to the song or band in some dimension, whether it was tied to the lyrical meaning of the song or the mood it created. I was very excited to have resolved the problem of the playlist being a little boring. In addition to bringing a little color to the playlist, I decided to remove the lyric links in favor of choosing a few key excerpts from each song. One thing I neglected to change was the repetitive order of the components of each song, but I would take care of that later by rearranging them.

Between this second revision and the last, I made a pretty extensive series of small changes that ranged from spacing to grammatical corrections. At some point, I decided to make the title images links to the full lyrics for each song. Additionally, I diversified the audio sources by using a few sources other than YouTube. Individually, the series of changes were minor, but the cumulative change was significant.

The Final Revision - "Life in Music"

I thought that I was satisfied with the project after the second major revision, but I decided to revisit it a week after making the "finishing" touches. At that point, I was completely satisfied with the visual presentation of the playlist. I reread each section and even listened to each song a few times. Once more, I was happy with the meaning I had communicated in each song, chiefly in a lyrical sense. Despite this, I did agree with Professor Anderson's point that I did not mention the sound of each song. I was pretty unhappy to have overlooked such a fundamental dimension, considering the assignment was about music. I worried that adding anything might stretch out my text beyond the too-boring-to-read threshold, but I felt like I was leaving out the most important part of the analysis. I listened to every song once more, noting the musical elements that stood out to me. I wrote about some specific points and also made general statements about the sound of each song as a complete piece. I stepped away from the assignment for a few hours, reread the entire playlist, and decided that I had finished. I felt like further changes would either saturate an already content-rich piece of writing or compromise its consistency.

The Playlist - In Reflection

As I worked on this assignment, I was not too daunted by the task at hand. I do not remember it seeming like an ordeal. However, looking back over the list of revisions I made, I can see that I did put a lot of work into it. Honestly, before looking over these revisions, I had forgotten what the playlist originally looked like. It went through many changes, more than I remembered off the top of my head. Seeing the progressive growth of the assignment through the revisions list makes me feel like I really developed something in creating this playlist. On that note, I wish I had uploaded every revision to my podcast, because exploring the various changes to the playlist was rewarding. In the end, I learned a lot through the gradual creative process of creating this playlist.

In the context of English, I think that this assignment improved my writing ability simply because it was not an essay. This was the first non-essay writing assignment I had been given in college. The expectations were not as concrete, but I think that actually improved the quality of what I wrote. I was not following a form or even some standard mental process in writing this, and it was a new experience in terms of intellectual creation. I also learned the value of considering the reader, because I tried not to lose anything in translation from thought to text. Beyond that, I came to understand the value of reevaluating a work by stepping back from it and viewing it from a new angle. I completely missed an important point in my first draft: an analysis of the musical elements of each song. Exiting the scope of the playlist, I can apply this experience to any work that involves critical thinking. Being able to approach a problem (or a goal, rather) from different angles is critical to developing a thorough solution. At times, it is easy to assume that your first take on something is the complete picture. The reality is that sometimes you have to depart from your instincts and consider other views, like those of the people who commented on my playlist. My work certainly benefited from their critiques and the consequent adjustments I made. Clearly, this kind of critical thinking process transcends English and applies to every field of academia, or even life in general. I know it is a stretch to make this connection, but I think it is true.

In another light, this project was a great experience for me because it was the first release of creative energy I had been allowed in a college class. It was nice to exit the realm of syllabi, rubrics, guidelines, prompt assignments, and monotonous fact regurgitation. This assignment gave me the opportunity to decide what I wanted to write about and the manner in which I would present my ideas. That in itself was a learning experience, considering that it is not irregular to be commanded how to do an assignment. I had to think a lot about the songs I would discuss, the layout of my playlist, and even what I chose to focus on in my writing. As a result, I put more energy into this assignment than I might have in a paper that I "just had to get done." I obviously valued the quality of the assignment, as seen in my many revisions. I even wrote about ten songs rather than the minimum "required" eight, because I felt like I could not cut one of the ten songs I chose from the list. In the end, it was just exciting and positive in every light. I was given the chance to do work that was not only productive, but engaging and fun.

The podcast assignment was beyond challenging for me. I faced a lot of difficulty picking exactly what to talk about. Ultimately, I chose to discuss Pearl Jam's first album: Ten. This album came out when I was less than a year old. I was exposed to a lot of great music in the 90's by my parents. Pearl Jam was one band that really stuck with me. In high school, I listened to them almost exclusively for months. I felt that my love for their music would reduce the stresses of this assignment, but I was wrong.

Draft 1 - Pearl Jam's Masterpiece: Ten

I began by writing a script for myself to follow, after failed attempts to "wing" the entire podcast. Neither really worked. I hate the sound of my voice, so both ways produced a podcast that annoyed me. I revised my plan for talking points at least twenty times. When it came to actually recording, I do not remember how many times I found myself recording a line, listening to it, deleting it, and then repeating this process without end. Ultimately, in this first draft, my winning strategy was a mixture of improvisation and scripting. I had some parts of the script so well-memorized that they kind of flowed naturally, and I supplemented these parts with thoughts that came to me in the moment. In the end, when I had finished, I truly felt satisfied. After a lot of recording, I sounded pretty confident and I think my message was pretty clear. I have to say that my favorite part of the podcast I made was not my spoken parts, but the meshing of the interviews and the songs I found. In the original, I had two unrelated interviews that seemed to actually come together in context, and I layered that on top of the intro to the album.

Revised Version - Pearl Jam's Masterpiece: Ten

I knew that the first draft was not going to be the last, but I was pretty surprised to hear that some of my talking points were off. I was more worried about the flow, which I also ended up correcting. However, it was so hard to rerecord and retain the same "sound" as in my original podcast. I could not seem to recreate my tone or my pacing. I found a really good interview in which Stone Gossard, Pearl Jam's rhythm guitarist, described what Ten represented to him. Additionally, I trimmed most of the segments that sampled the songs in order to make sure the podcast was not overpowered by the presence of music. The most significant change was that I scrapped my original introductory commentary. As Professor Anderson pointed out, it really was a bit strong compared to the rest of the podcast. I made a point to slow down and mellow out my voice for the rerecording. It took quite a few tries, both to capture what I wanted to say and the best delivery of that message. On a technical note, this whole second revision was a major headache because my original Audacity project file was corrupted at some point. I ended up using my "finished" mp3 from the first draft. I imported it into Audacity, chopped it up as best as I could, and went about rearranging what I could. At some points, it may sound a little odd because I had to use noise removal filters to cancel out parts that meshed together (when I was trying to isolate specific segments). I do not mean to complain so much about the difficulty. It was the kind of challenge that pays off. In the end, I listened to the second revision and the first one, and I do feel like the second one is more engaging to listen to and less drawn out.

The Podcast - In Reflection

This project was certainly a milestone for me, because it was the first time I had ever recorded myself for any purpose. I had to get comfortable with the sound of my voice and then try to articulate the message I had in mind. Delivering a spoken essay is so different from a written one. I would imagine that this is the case for most people. When I felt as though my written plan was good, I ended up fumbling on the recording so many times that I had to step away from the project. When I found myself on a roll while speaking, my confidence would cause me to forget what I was about to say. Leaping this hurdle of an assignment required finding a middle ground between a fixed plan and a dynamic delivery. Beyond that, it made me realize how much more transparent an audio essay is than a written essay. In an audio essay, anything out of place stands out. In a written essay, it is easy to sometimes disregard oddities or filler points. It was difficult but rewarding to strain my many plans for this podcast into one thorough message. It took a lot of second-guessing and analysis to determine the balance between needed and unneeded information. In hindsight, if I could change anything about this project, I would have made a point to upload every version of the song that I made. As I mentioned in my reflection of the playlist, it is very rewarding to witness the development of a project through the many forms it goes through. I really wish I had saved the Audacity project and the mp3 at every phase for this reason. Again, this was a first-time experience for me... and while I can complain about the quality of my podcast in its current form, I think I should be happy with the relative progress that I made from the true first draft and the many revisions that I did not save copies of (or upload to the class website).

The prospect of making a website for a class was thrilling. I was so excited and so ambitious about the assignment from the start that it became a problem. Rather than starting by thinking about what I would make the site about, I started by quickly purchasing a domain name, installing Drupal, and setting off on the design process. I spent quite a few hours designing the visual side of my site. Finally, after distracting myself from what was important for days, I realized that I had no clue what I would do with the site. At first, I planned on blogging about programming and technology. I did not follow up with that, because I feared that I was not enough of an expert to outweigh the boringness of such a topic with exciting insight. Later, I planned on making it an all-purpose general site that would broadcast "me" to the world. I laid out a few different sections of the site for musical postings, tech-related postings, a link aggregator, and even a section that I would dedicate to my first attempts at making a comic. It turns out that I could not live up to my ambition. When I tried to tackle such a range of topics, I was unable to focus on one thing at a time. The quality of my first comic drafts was so embarrassing that I deleted them. While I do consider myself kind of a geek, I did not feel like I had the authority to blog about technology in a unique way. Feeling a little disenchanted with my vision of my "awesome" site, I decided to step back and explore another avenue: a focused one.

I have made it clear that I love music. In this class I have been introduced to new artists who have become some of my favorites, which is truly a joyous thing. I wanted to attempt to reciprocate this phenomenon, so I decided to make a blog dedicated to exploring music from all genres and levels of popularity. After a lot of brainstorming, and still feeling a little excited about drawing with my graphics tablet, I fired up GIMP and drew a logo. It was a boom box with legs, headphones, and a face of sorts. After expelling a lot of energy, I came up with a name. To my shock, SongTron.com was not taken, so I quickly registered it and set to work.

I decided to utilize a dark, minimalist theme... and to use Wordpress instead of Drupal. My reasoning behind this decision came out of my singular purpose for the site: blogging. I enjoy trying my hand at design, but I made a point to focus on the content instead this time (hence the minimalist theme). The depth of my submissions does not compare to the depth of my analyses in the playlist assignment, but that is intended. I want to invite people who visit my site to try new music and develop their own perception of it. I plan to introduce the songs and artists to a degree, but I do not want to tell listeners what to think. I am excited about this opportunity, because I think music is universal, a uniting force. It sounds so cliché, but music is a cornerstone of my sanity and my happiness. I think I am going to love giving people a chance to hear the music that I love.

The Website - In Reflection

My website has come a long way since the time that I mentioned it in my midterm portfolio. I have 30 entries of songs, which I tried to diversify as much as possible. The site covers a wide range of artists from main stream to underground; it also spans most genres. I tried to find the best videos for the songs I chose, and if I couldn't, I used alternative sources like Lala. At some point, I added a random song feature. This is a just simple link to a Wordpress plug-in that gets a random blog entry, placed directly under the site logo. Of all the things that I have learned from creating and maintaining this site, it is that a website is a very gradually developed piece of work. You cannot expect to fill a website with quality content in a narrow time span. It is a commitment. Additionally, just as you must try to regularly contribute to a site in development, you must maintain your view of the direction that you want to move in. For a quality site, you need consistency. I have reached the point where I actually enjoy posting music to the site. It does not seem like a chore, and my seemingly simple posts each take a lot of time and thought (usually just in selecting a song). It is something that I enjoy enough to possibly continue. As I have stated, music is a cornerstone of my sanity... and there is nothing as exciting as giving people new avenues to explore musically. While I am pleased with the site, I can see how one might argue against its quality. However, I take its value from what it has been as a learning experience. The process of designing the site, of picking the songs, of writing the posts is what has been worthwhile. Whether or not it is the best site, I have gained something from it: the experience of putting thought into and genuinely caring about a creative work that is not a mere one-time development (like a paper). This website is not a throwaway; it is something that I have grown and something that I might continue to grow.

Of all the assignments we have worked on this semester, this one was by far the most intimidating and the most difficult. I had never worked with video editing before, so unlike most of the other mediums we worked with in this class, this was completely new to me. I faced my usual difficulty with starting, taking several days just to come up with a concept for the video. After hours in front of my computer one night, I finally thought I had a functional idea: to juxtapose the trailer for Office Space with that of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I wanted to highlight the stifling nature of the corporate work, namely the world of the cubicle. I also wanted to express how strong one is to want to break away from that, by hyperbole: comparing such a person to the warriors of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. This stagnation and the process of breaking free from it can be likened to some of our class discussions on creativity in education, a topic that I take great interest in.

The Editing Process

Tedious: the perfect one-word description of video editing. A two-word description? Time consuming. I found the greatest difficulties that come with working on this medium are purely technical. I think it really comes down to the software you are using, your comfort level with that, and the source material you are working with. I installed Adobe Premier for this assignment, so that should establish where I stood prior to it. My source material was simply two trailers. I extracted the audio from the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon trailer and edited it only using Audacity. I edited the video footage from Office Space in Adobe Premier. I ended up incorporating segments of its audio track into the Audacity project as well.

My starting point was basically rearranging the video footage to match my new audio. After spending hours splicing segments of the footage and moving it around, calculating timing, and then making modifications on the audio track, I had a very mediocre first draft. This first, very "primal" version did not even make it to the Internet; I took it as the product of my "learning" phase -- getting accustomed to working between Premier and Audacity. Once I felt comfortable with the software, I actually started over from scratch (having thoroughly ruined my source materials without realizing it). I put a lot of effort into timing the scenes to somewhat match the audio. I experimented more with the audio, fading out the music at points and increasing the degree of "mixing" taking place. It was thoroughly time consuming, specifically considering the "ripple effect" that takes place when you adjust one segment of audio or video. For every "single" change, it seems as though you have to change the rest of the project. That process was definitely a learning experience, and as I put more time into it, my workflow became increasingly productive. By the final cut, I had gone through at least 3 significant revisions. The progression can be generalized like so: The first version was a hodgepodge of mixed video scenes, without the audio lining up properly. The second version had the audio timed correctly, but the musical portion of the audio track was too loud and played over speaking parts. The final version has correct timing, more fast cuts, and the best blending of audio that I could manage.

Original iBranding Post

The Mashup Video - In Reflection

My video is probably not the greatest. It probably is not even average. Again, this was the most difficult assignment for me. That is not negative though, because the truth is that I learned the most from the assignment. I already had some exposure to most of the other mediums we worked with (except for podcasts), so this was truly a new creative experience. I learned not only of the technical aspects of editing, but the conceptual dimensions too. For example, I came to a better understanding of the "flow" of a video as a narrative of sorts. On the technical side, I experienced everything from adjusting timing to placing key frames; additionally, I developed a feel for the workflow between two different software suites (in this case, Premier and Audacity). There is definitely a learning curve to this kind of work, and I have progressed along it. If I have picked up any new skill set from this class, the most obvious one pertains to audio and video editing. On the note of revisions, I did not render the video and upload it for every revision; I basically whittled away to this version that you see with maybe 1 or 2 intermediate versions. I received feedback about this "final" version, including a few suggestions of how I might change it. Specifically, the main issue that was brought up was the audio of the swords clashing and horse hooves. I accept that criticism, and I do not mean any disrespect in not acting on it. I am not disregarding this suggestion; I simply think that the sword fighting audio is relevant to the "warrior" message. If I were to edit it out, I would be left with a gap of either silence or some other music that would not match the soundtrack of the trailer. I came to decide that making this revision would potentially subtract more from the video than it could add. It may be rough around the edges, but I really think I went as far as I could with it. More importantly, I learned from it.

Photography Exploration - The Process and The Product

The goal of this assignment was to explore amateur art on the web, specifically on the photography-sharing site Flickr. The primary goal was to analyze amateur art and potentially the definition of the "amateur" artist. Secondarily, it was also an exploration in visual artistry. I started by diving headfirst into Flickr, browsing random "interesting" images. I was a little overwhelmed by the abundance of great photos. I really wanted to have a diverse gallery, so I combed through random images for around an hour. As I browsed, I started opening my favorite images in new tabs. That was my approach: identify a good range of photos, narrow them down, and then write my analyses. Well, the assignment called for at least 4 images in the gallery. By the time I finished my casual "browsing," I realized that I had around fifteen images picked out. It was hard to choose which ones I would leave out. I ended up removing a few images that seemed most similar. Even after cutting out a few pictures from my selection, I reached the point at which I felt like I could not remove any more. I was left with nine images:

Photography Exploration - In Reflection

I will be honest, in choosing these images, I had no specific criteria. I simply noted the ones that struck me the most. It may seem like such a process might be unproductive, but I found that the process of analyzing this random collection of images was stimulating. Prior to this assignment, I had no experience in analysis of visual art. I looked up terminology and tried to approach each image from a critical perspective, detached from my first "oh, cool" reaction. I gave it my best shot to look into each photo from a less than superficial perspective. I cannot say whether I was successful in my critiques, because I am not exactly a seasoned student of art. With that said, I do not mean to suggest that I did not learn anything from this experience. While I may not be completely fluent in art vocabulary, I did learn something from the process of analysis. It was most certainly a form of critical thinking. I did not want to just write out some random commentary; I felt as though any kind of fabrication would be really transparent. If it seems forced, I guess that it could be worse -- it could seem completely shallow. The point is that I was compelled to think in a new way with this assignment.

Before this assignment, I knew that amateurs could produce high quality works. I had been exposed to various collaborative online communities throughout the process of growing up alongside the Internet. However, this was merely an observation that I had realized at some point. This assignment required me to articulate my realization of that concept. It was very effective; in an interesting way... we were given the criteria that we were to analyze amateur photography. Throughout the process of exploring Flickr, I encountered art that was of the utmost quality. Some were clearly labeled as being professional, with copyrights and links to the artist's website. Others were unlabeled and licensed under the Creative Commons. Some of these photos in the "grey area" were obviously amateur, but their quality was stunning to the point that I questioned whether or not it was truly amateur. In fact, some of the professional images were less impressive than the amateur works. Though I already knew that there was a very blurry line between the traditional concepts of amateur and professional, this assignment seemed to successfully manifest this idea. It finalized my stance on the issue: that divide no longer exists with the advent of technology, one of the greatest enablers of meritocracy and production democracy.

Most of the content behind this assignment can be found in my gallery, linked to above, but I also made a blog post about the collection. I chose to analyze one photo in greater depth: the photo of the old man. In this blog post I explore the motifs and visual dimensions of this specific photo, in addition to summarizing the experience of compiling and analyzing my photo gallery.

Following the photography exploration assignment, the collage project was a great way to build on that creative "momentum." I thoroughly enjoyed the process of exploring visual art, but the prospect of actually creating some was even more exciting. My greatest difficulty lied in the usual place: transforming my creative ambition into actual work. Given that the assignment was to make a collage, as opposed to making a piece from scratch, the process of creating the photo was not too daunting. However, I faced the usual hurdle of not knowing where to start: specifically, what to make. Rather than trying to formulate some plan, which usually ends up being completely unproductive for me, I again just dove into the process.

The First (Best) Draft

I began by simply browsing Flickr for good photos that I could extract certain elements from. As I browsed the "interesting" category, I came across an image of a classroom and immediately had an idea. Our many in-class discussions about education and creativity were something that had really intrigued me. I chose to build some motif around the relationship between creativity and education. After finding the image of the classroom, I thought I'd try to contrast education and creativity. Honestly, it may be a little cynical, but I believe that in standardized education, creativity has pretty much died out. With this stance, my first step was to desaturate the color image of the classroom. I then found a vivid photograph of a landscape, which would act as the "alternative" to the lifeless classroom. Upon erasing the space in the windows of the classroom photo, I added the landscape to the layer below it. At that point, I sort of felt like I had a finished product. I walked away from the assignment. Another day, I revisited it because I was feeling a little dissatisfied with the limited range of elements. After all, I only had combined two images. It struck me that people would be the most important part of this image, so I searched Flickr for an image of children. I eventually found a really great photo of some school-age children running down a dirt road while holding hands. It may seem superficial, but there was something really defining about the fact that they were holding hands. On top of that, their position relative to the camera was exactly what I wanted: they were running away. This fit perfectly into my developing collage: I made it look as though the children were escaping from the school, into the colors of the outdoors. My last decision was to add some prison bars to the windows, with a hole where the children "escaped." It may seem a little dramatic, but I wanted to make my point very clear. I think such a hyperbole is better than a subtle message. In the end, I was very satisfied with the composition of the collage, but I felt like it was missing something. I decided to summarize it in one word, in my handwriting (rather than the perfect text of a font), so I wrote "escape."

(Click image for original blog post)

The Second Take

I did not receive much feedback about my collage, but what I did hear was positive. Despite feeling like I was done with the project, I decided to revisit it. My goal was not to make something to replace the first draft, but rather to supplement it. I wanted an alternative. I decided to rearrange the scene to an extent, by shifting the focus. Additionally, I tried my hand at making it more abstract. I experimented with changing the color balance and levels of the image in addition to using some blending effects. One thing I really wanted to do was to make the children silhouettes rather than identifiable people. Looking back on this draft, it was certainly worthwhile merely because I actually wanted to do it. However, I definitely don't like this second take as much as the first version. Considering this, I will not embed a thumbnail of this second take here. If you are interested in seeing it, read this blog post.

The Collages - In Reflection

This was by far my favorite assignment. I really enjoy visual art, so being given the chance to produce some for a class (without constraints) was fantastic. Most of all, I think it was good that I had to create a message with this. If it was not an integral part of the assignment, perhaps I would have made something meaningless. That pursuit of meaning was a guiding force in the development of this collage, and I think it actually improved the overall quality. The pieces clearly express my stance on an issue that I care about, but they are also visually appealing (at least, they are to me). I put a lot of energy into the execution of this collage, with the goal of producing something I could be proud of, and it worked out. I am very pleased with the editing that I did; it was an excellent exercise of my Photoshop skills (what few I have). I must say again, I consider my first draft to be the best of the two. However, I am glad that I had the will to attempt to recast this collage in a different light. The second draft did not turn out how I wanted it to, but I am glad that I tried. If anything, it made me realize how proud I was of the original work. I suppose the take away lesson was that sometimes an initial version can be a final version (in the context of art and other forms of expression).

The Starting Point

This last project was unique in its openness, so it is worth mentioning how I approached it conceptually (before the actually development process). The open-ended nature of the assignment set it apart from the previous assignments. While we were given the general constraint of producing some message related to the class, everything else was our decision. Most importantly, the medium was up to us. Naturally, following the general trend of the assignments in this class, finding a starting point was pretty daunting. My first major problem came from my perception of what exactly the project should be. There was something about the finality of the project that made me blow it out of proportions. I went through multiple ideas, ranging from videos to interactive collages. Everything I could think of seemed too "small scale," especially for the last project. I continued to shoot down my ideas as the first week after the assignment gradually passed. Eventually, I decided to stop thinking about the grandness of my ideas, of what I "should" have done for the final project. Instead, I began to think about what I wanted to do. Looking over my previous projects, I realized how much I enjoyed the photography and collage assignments. I had already revisited my first attempt at a collage, just making some modifications to it. I decided to recreate the same concept from scratch, but to focus on the creation process rather than the product. I decided my message would pertain to the original message in my collage, creativity, but in a different light. Rather than simply framing creativity as an escape, I would demonstrate the life cycle of creative works in this age of technology... from start to finish.

Development

Following the advice of Prof. Anderson, I downloaded and installed Camtasia, a very user friendly screen recording software suite. I wanted the footage of my creation process to be "natural;" I wanted to avoid any kind of rehearsal in order to render a continuous, "organic" view of digital art. With this in mind, my minimal preparation was limited to experimenting with Camtasia. I put enough time into using the program to become comfortable using it, to the extent that I could record the creation of my collage in one take. Upon reaching that point, I locked the door to my room, turned on my music, and started recording.

If you watch the video, you will notice a blatant contradiction to my message about my approach of avoiding preparation. Specifically, it is evident that I "prepared" when I search Flickr and auto complete reveals the searched that I use in the video, implying that I already found all of my images. Well, I will be the first to call myself out on that mistake. The truth is that when I first started recording, I basically browsed Flickr for close to an hour in pursuit of the perfect pieces to use in my collage. My video file quickly grew to over two gigabytes, and its length was ridiculous. I realized that, even if I sped it up to fit in a practical time frame, the phase of locating photos was going to be ridiculously fast or disproportionately long (compared to the other phases of development). In the end, I deleted my first video once I had a general idea of what photos I would use.

The turning point was firing up Photoshop and opening the four pictures I used. Clearly, my previous collages served as inspiration; I reused the concept of children escaping from a classroom. However, its evolution was somewhat different from the first. The composition, colors, and even the view angle were different. I really liked the idea of desaturating the classroom to accentuate the colors of the outdoors, so I did it again. However, I think it turned out better in this collage, given the rich color of the background photo I chose. Another important difference was my choice to not use jail bars, in favor of a less-dramatic delivery of my message (that education is monotonous without creativity). Two other key differences including making the children's figures silhouettes (inspired by the second take of my previous collage) and using a filter (on a duplicate layer that acted as an overlay). I wanted the image to be abstract, but not too abstract (again, a consideration I took from my second collage). The last essential element was my hand-written message: "escape into creativity." I like the concept of using handwriting in digital art because it seems to reintroduce a degree of personality to otherwise "perfect" elements. In my eyes, using a smooth font would not possess the same voice as my handwriting.

Original iBranding Post

Technicalities and Revision

I was very excited about how this project turned out, and I genuinely thought that it was mostly complete. The problems that were clear to me were mostly technical issues. First of all, in condensing the 45 minute clip into 5 minutes, there was a very obvious bug in Camtasia. To simplify, it seems as though Camtasia tracks the system cursor separately from everything else. In the current version, if you speed up a clip speed, the cursor is not sped up. Even worse, the background video actually includes the cursor. When I sped up the clip, the video had two visible cursors: the image of the original (sped up properly) and the cursor tracked by Camtasia (at normal speed). This was the most important problem, because it made the clip confusing. After some investigation, I found out that this is a known bug in the current version. The work-around is to produce video from the clip at normal speed, import the resultant video, and speed that up. My only other major change was after reading some great feedback (which was given within a day of my posting!). The "drums-n-bass" music I chose in the first clip simply did not fit, so I opted for a more light-hearted song from the Newgrounds Audio Portal (licensed under the Creative Commons). I watched the second version several times and eventually decided that it was the final version.

The Final Project - In Reflection

Considering how uncertain I was about this project in its inception, it could not have turned out any better. Not only am I proud of the video that I made, but I even love the collage. I think it is my best one so far, and I created it in one forty-five minute sitting! I think this project was a great way to connect the various topics we discussed in this class. Flickr is a crowd sourced, collaborative community. I was able to modify existing art, giving it a new spin (and a real message), and then reciprocate... contributing it to the community that harbored its creation. I even used music from another collaborative community: the Newgrounds Audio Portal. Everything in this video and collage is licensed under the Creative Commons, therefore they are too. As I said, I was successful in communicating a message through the collage. I would even say that it was a more effective delivery than my two previous, similar collages. Beyond that, and more importantly, the video also conveyed an important message. The web has become an environment that fosters the creation of content. It is easy to merely consume, but if you put some energy into it, you can contribute as easily. It is a cycle; technology has interconnected mankind in such a way that new avenues of artistic creation, sharing, and collaboration have been opened. Creativity is at the core of humanity, and art is the most significant form of expressing this element of our identities. Technology has breathed new life into creativity and art.

On a final note, I have to restate how thrilled I was with this project. When I stopped worrying about how good it might have been and actually started working on it, I ironically improved my chances of making something good. Personally, the lesson I took away from the entire process of creating this final project was that approaching such work with the end result in mind was limiting. Forgetting my ambitions for the project and simply seeing where it would take me was the best decision I made. It came to life naturally, true to the creative process, and even made me proud to call it my work.

Here are some examples of my participation in our online class environment...

I shared my initial thoughts on Crowdsourcing

I gave Anton some feedback on his pump-up playlist.

I commented on the great artists in Emma's playlist.

I criticized Apple in a blog post by Joe.

I asked Dan about a due date.

I made a blog entry about the personal website of a really talented web designer.

I made a blog entry about what I could offer to my classmates.

I commented on Mawd's awesomely diverse playlist.

I gave some feedback on Tally's podcast about her talented friend.

I told VV how impressive the first draft of her podcast was.

I commented on Zane's playlist and thanked him for introducing me to Lupe Fiasco's music.

I thanked J for introducing me to K'naan, the second great artist this class has introduced to me.

I laid out my final plans for my personal website.

I mentioned a hilarious mashup video called The Curious Case of Forrest Gump.

I told Tessa about a video of Ben Folds live in concert and performing over Chat Roulette. Apparently she was at said concert.

I gave Tally some feedback on her collage submission.

I commented on Anton's collage submission with a very minor critique.

I gave Carolyn what critiques I could on her awesome mashup video.

I sang praises on Brandon's great mashup video.

I offered what insight I could on Emma's mashup video.

I discussed the era of 90s cartoons in response to VV's "Hey Arnold!" mashup video.

I told Zane how perfect his Napoleon Dynamite mashup video was.

I made a quick blog post about television advertising through Google.

I commented on Emma's revised collage assignment.

I tried to add to Tessa's feedback to Tyler about his revised collage.