The End.

BDC 192 Digital Media was one of my favourite classes this semester.

Here’s a couple things I loved this semester:

Lecture was my favourite part of this class. Even at its crazy early hour & having to wake up at 6am every Tuesday morning to make it here on time, it was worth it. I didn’t really understand the exact term that is ‘Digital Media’ but after this class not only do I understand what Digital Media is but I actually really enjoy every aspect of it. I also liked how even though class was so early in the morning, Laurie was so enthusiastic about what we were learning and remained passionate about what she spoke about each week. It helped me enjoy the content of the course.

Crits in class. I have never been one to enjoy sharing my work because I am always scared that people will be like “ew, what is that?” However, this changed this year. Not only did crits help me feel more comfortable with sharing my work in a professional environment, but it also made me feel more comfortable with showing people my work before hand. Input from others really helped me to improve my assignments before they were due & allowed me to look at my assignment as a viewer, rather then the creator…if that makes any sense.

Here are a few things I would change:

Morning Lecture. If I lived on campus I wouldn’t be saying this. And I know this as not my professors planning, but having to get up at 6am and for some not even leaving school till 9pm is honestly insane.

Twitter during class. I love that twitter was used during class and I definitely liked adding #BDC192 hashtags to my tweets, but I found that tweeting DURING class was a little disruptive. I was personally so intrigued with the content of the lecture that taking a few minutes to tweet took me out of the lecture & into a “how can I write this into a tweet” mode. I know that there was a study and what not that it’s helps you learn, but for me personally it was just a little disruptive. However, I liked tweeting after class/about the class.

Website design. Before this class I had never created a website before. I feel like everyone could have benefitted from a little more website design information. I also found it hard to start my website without a rubric. I didn’t know what exactly I needed. I remember in lab she Laurie at least 4 pages, but that was all I knew.

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Overall, I loved this course. I loved learning about all these aspects of media in relation to my life that I never even knew existed before. I discovered that I actually like designing things, but sometimes I’m too picky and take too much time choosing specific colours/fonts. I think it is important for people to learn about whats happening around them. Staying up to day and keyed in to the newest things—twitter, blogging etc. allows you to make a name for yourself. Getting yourself online—in a positive way, is probably the best thing you can do for yourself (career wise, and personally—its pretty fun) And the one thing I won’t ever forget from this course is that Google NEVER forgets.   

I’m excited to read this during fourth year & see what I’ve done with Digital Media & hopefully laugh at my amateur designs.

This is Eve Sharabi and I thank you for reading my blog! :)

Who, What, Where, When, WHY?

The Why of Transmedia.

When I Grow Up, I want to be Carmen Sandiego!

This week in lecture we spoke first about HTML (the fun fun world of hypertext—I’m not offending it! I give credit to those who have the ability to find the one / that’s throwing them off.) and then more about Gaming and ARGs.

Now, I’ve never been a huge gamer, but I did enjoy a little super Nintendo growing up. And as I got older I LOVED playing Sims. When my parents bought me the Sims Deluxe Edition I was the happiest kid alive. I don’t really know why everyone loved the Sims so much, I mean they don’t even talk properly. But dressing them up, and deciding their hairstyle & who they’re going to date. As a preteen this was the most exciting thing.  When I come to think of it, I played games even before that. I remember I had an Arthur computer game & my favourite Carmen Sandiego. Wow, I never realized I was such a gamer growing up. I guess I grew up in the “virtual world”

Anywho, Laurie said how gaming is a part of life. It acts as many different things including ice breakers—I definitely bonded with my mums co-workers daughter over the Sims. It allows for this virtual world, where nothing really matters because if you fail, you can just restart. I mean, having a Sim until their old with grandchildren would be pretty amazing, but I know personally I got bored of the Jones family and would create the Cooks down the road.

Virtual reality lets you experience things and do things that you wouldn’t normally do in the outside world. As a preteen I would never imagine talking to the cute boy down the road, but OH HO OH, on the Sims, I could befriend him in seconds. I mean, that’s rather a silly example, but I think it gets the point across. Virtual reality is kind of amazing. It let’s one get outside of their comfort zone a little bit.

Besides this, is has an entire fantasy exploration aspect. Carmen Sandiego always got me hooked because I felt like a secret agent whenever I played. Carmen wears a red suit and a mysterious hat that covers one eye. She was just so cool. I’ll post a picture of Carmen below. She was an inspiration. But, I didn’t just get entertainment out of these games, but I got knowledge as well. Carmen Sandiego allowed me to see the world (virtually of course). I remember doing something along the lines of putting a Greek god’s statue back together to get the next clue, but it had to be the right one etc. etc. It taught me a little geography and history & I think there was a few math equations if I remember correctly. Wow, I wonder if I cam find the CDs, I’d like to play the games all over again. Getting lost in a virtual world is so exciting. It can be distracting, don’t get me wrong, but venturing into the lives of Carmen Sandiego is a lot more educational then facebook or angry birds… (FUN FACT: I’ve never actually played angry birds. I have no idea what the app/game? Does)

Here stands Carmen in all her luscious ginger glory:

 Another thing, we didn’t specifically talk about in this weeks lecture, but something I want to briefly discuss is interactive art. We did go over interactivity and how important and entertaining it is, so I guess what I have to say fits nicely into this. I think interactive art is possibly the most magical thing yet. I love art. I truly am a fan. But, its modern contemporary art that catches my eye. I love things that are hand made & I love things that are made for our hands. In other words, when you can physically play with art, or interact with it in someway it is a whole lot more interesting. I don’t have a specific example that we haven’t already discussed in class, but something that is online and well, not exactly the most amazing art, but very addictive is this. This website is so pretty. It really is. I have written so many different things, screen capped it & sent it to so many people. There’s something special about that. When you can take something created by someone else & make it your own. I think my point is that interaction in this world is possibly the most important factor of life. And people tend to believe virtual inventions have prevented this interactivity with the “real world” but I beg to differ, I think technology has only enhanced humans ability to share.

Here is my awful attempt at writing I heart Digital Media, Eve on Silk:

*Please note that none of the above images are mine. I do not claim the rights to any of them. They are simply images  I found online, or made online and believed worked well as examples.

If I tell you, I'll have to kill you.

Click here to see my final piece.

Artist Statement

For this project, I decided to make a teaser for the television and book series Pretty Little Liars. The reason I chose this specific show was because I wanted to incorporate fire in one way & thought of a way this could work for Pretty Little Liars.

Call me a pyromaniac, but I think fire is beautiful. It automatically catches my eye whenever I come across it—be this from a candle or a bonfire. And as I cleaned my room one weekend, I came across the Barbie covered Pretty Little Liars novel.

Within seconds I had an idea.

With an $8 Barbie doll from the nearest Toys R Us, some lighter fluid, a match and the cliché saying “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you”  my idea was set in stone.

Pretty Little Liars is all about secrets and death. Even though that sounds like a rather odd concept,  it worked well for this piece.

So I bought the Barbie, lit her on fire, took some pictures and worked with what I had. I learned that I should always go in with a story board or specific idea of what I want to occur—whereas burning is rather hard to assume the outcome, many other things will benefit from step-to-step planning.

I found that working with trial & error, dragging and dropping and little edits is what got me to where I was.  When you first drag something into After Effects, the size of the image, depending on composition size, is normally quite large— And I kind of liked the way this looked. I played with size of image to capture the most grotesque burning Barbie scenes. I cut my image amount from almost 40 pictures to about 10.

I worked with the program Audacity to cut and alter sound to fit my piece. Instead of making one solid continuous track I imported separate files and dragged and drop them into the perfect spot. Although I did not know how exactly to use sound in After Effects, a little Googling and asking around really helped me.

Another thing I benefitted from was tutorials. It’s really cool how many other people are trying to do the same thing you are & have posted online to teach the world.

Overall, I went in with one solid idea. I prepared what I needed, did a little research and ended with a piece I actually really like! It was my first time using after effects, and I was definitely intimidated at first—but It’s rewarding to produce a piece that I am genuinely proud of.  For all of you out there that are too scared to use a new program, try a new food, or cut your hair in a crazy new way, I suggest you do it! Unless you try, you won’t know what you’re good at—or what you like. Creating this teaser in After effects was definitely a huge learning experience for me and after this project I am quite excited to continue using the program.

Burn Barbie Burn

For my Trailer I decided to go with my initial idea—a Pretty Little Liars. I purchased a Barbie & burned her. I always feel rather crazy saying this, but it’s true. I did it & it turned out pretty well:

However, I realized I should have probably come up with a plan before hand. I went in thinking woohoo gonna burn a Barbie. But I never really decided if I was going to do stop motion, or work with footage. In the end I left it up to my friend—who took pictures and just went with what I had. This has taught me to think about what I want in the future, as it is my project and without direction it may not turn out exactly as I hoped. Lucky for me, this time, I loved the final results. I should just know for next time that having an initial plan doesn’t hurt anybody.

I am currently on the look for fonts that compare to the original Pretty Little Liars title as I feel keeping it mostly the same will add to the overall piece. Here is the font below (taken straight out of the opening title sequence):

Here is the font I will most likely 98% use (I found it on dafont.com):

 Now I am just trying to sort out putting the pictures together to skillfully create an overall piece. I have based my ideas off the opening title sequence of the show—which looks a little bit like this:

In the end, I’ve really learned that trial and error and mistakes make a piece what they are. If I don’t know how to do something—Google it! I found this great tutorial on shattering glass that I will use in my final piece! Experimenting is key in creative work, as you don’t know what works best until you try it out.


PS. Today is 11/11/11 no big deal!

Kindle You Glad I Didn't Say Hardcover Novel?

This week in lecture we spoke about tablets. More specifically we spoke about eReaders. Laurie stated how having an eReader means not having to lug that giant hardcover 600 page novel in your bag. Before this lecture, I will not lie, I always thought the whole Kindle/eReader thing was a little bit ridiculous. But after this lecture I came home, did a little research and was wonderfully impressed by the abilities of these things. Not only does the kindle havea  2 month battery life (when used 30 minutes a day) but it even has high contrast screens—or something along those lines, which prevents glare and allows you to read it's a piece of paper.

Okay, I may sound like an excited child over here, but that is truly what I am. I have always loved reading. I never had a passion for Mr. William Shakespeare, but I’ve always loved those “silly girl books”. I loved waiting for the newest It Girl or Private to hit shelves, buying it, and reading it before the night came to an end. But these days I barely have time to read let alone watch for the book to hit shelves or go pick it up. And eeek reading an entire book in one whole day would leave me with zero time to do anything.

But, with winter break coming around the corner, I will have endless free time. Reading should probably become a part of my life again. Ahhh winter break. So close I can literally almost taste it! Anywho, back on track. During the break I will be subwaying to work, or living in the warmth of my duvet. Lugging a book around—leaving no room in my purse, or leaving the magical heaven I call bed isn’t really necessary if I don’t have to do it. I know I sound lazy, but think about it!

It’s a cold winter day. The snow is falling. It’s minus 4 outside (but feels like -30 with the windshield). Your new favourite book just hit shelves, but the thought of escaping your warm house and entering the frost bite possibilities of the outside world is holding you back from driving to the nearest indigo. If instead you had a kindle/ or any other various eReaders this wouldn’t even be a thought! You would grab your eReader, purchase a book and sit down with your blanket and hot chocolate. Ahhh problem solved.

Anyways, I’m really not some sort of advertisement. No one paid me to hype up the eReaders, I just simple think they’re brilliant. You can download a book in 60 seconds—Regardless of whether it’s in stock at the nearest Indigo and read it at your leisure. It also has a high lighter option if you need to keep that line handy for a school paper. You can change the font size for your own pleasure, get free books, store your own files on the thing and even borrow books from your library!

Our world is amazing. Someone says, I want a way to access books from bed, and they do it.  It just makes you think about the endless possibilities of this world. What could be coming next? If you want it, you can create it—Now that’s a cool concept.  Just the other day I read a metro on my way to class & there was an article on tablets.  The person wrote about using tablets as menus at restaurants. The purpose would be that the waiter would have more time to actually communicate with the customer instead of try and remember their order—since whatever they wanted would be automatically clicked into the tablet and sent to the kitchen. I think the idea is fab. I think that it provides endless opportunity for a restaurant to do new things. Not only does it provide more 1-on-1 time with the wait staff, but it allows for people to key things in such as: I have a peanut allergy or I like my steak well done. Little things like this make a HUGE difference for a restaurant experience. Plus, I think it’s kind of cool.

In conclusion, I think that using technology to create a more hands on life is quite fab. I mean, we could all drop the technology forever & go outside, but it wouldn’t be the same thing. Using technology in our outside world, is a more interesting concept. It would re create those face-to-face connections that some believe technology has destroyed & act for an exciting day to day life.

Now I’m just waiting for someone to create a remote that pauses life—especially when I need a nice long nap, and life will be amazing.

(If you want to see what a Kindle is click this, they're pretty cool!)