Man, this week sure went by fast. I wonder why that is. Is it because I was having so much fun? Is it because I learned so much interesting stuff? Or is it because we only had four weeks instead of the usual seven? Yeah, it’s probably that last one. Hey, at least it was mostly one big assignment instead of a bunch of pesky little annoying ones.

What I Learned Undercover as a UMW Student

Ah, a tale of great espionage. Here, our bold protagonist commands wild animals, explores the country, and even crosses paths with the law. Truly a story for the generations.

How I Did the Final Project

That’s how I did everything! I utilized all the different techniques I learned this semester, shoehorning all the different forms of media into this project. It did indeed feel like a final project.

Create a T-Shirt

Hey, there’s the second of the two assignments I created! I even included a reference that surely no one will get, for good measure. Just think, in the later semesters other students will look at this very assignment and say “meh, I guess I’ll do this one”. It even has a type-o, to match the grammar error in my other assignment. Now future generations will know exactly how much thought and care I put into this class.

Things are certainly a lot different when you don’t have the weekend to work on your stuff. I guess that helps teach me time management skills, or something like that. I also got to learn how to use Audacity more thoroughly, since I kind of avoided it the first time around. Other than that, this week was mostly just reviewing the stuff I already learned. I guess that’s kind of the point, being the final week and all. For the class in general, I think I got a lot out of it. I got that pesky art credit I need to graduate, and I learned a bunch of stuff that I almost certainly will forget by the end of the summer. What more could you ask for?

Oh Firefly, what more can be said about this show? Should we continue to berate Fox for daring to cancel this masterpiece? However many times its been done before, it’s never enough.

The Complete Package: Firefly

Look, there’s the assignment with all the Firefly! So, Weekly Summary over, right? We already have all the Joss Whedon goodness, so what else could we need? It’s not enough? I need all the other stuff? Seriously? Okay fine, here’s all the crap nobody cares about.

Reading Movies

Here’s the part where we learned how to read a movie. We got to learn about all the different camera angles and whatnot. Long gone are the days when I can just sit back and enjoy a movie. Now I’ll just be fixated on how all these camera angles are supposed to make me feel. Thanks, DS106!

Look. Listen. Analyze. Prison Breaking

Wow. It turns out 1994 was a pretty good year for movies. Here’s another movie I’ll never be able to take at face value again, The Shawshank Redemption. Might as well throw my blu ray copy out the window, this one’s all analyzed up.

That Bleeping Censor: Pulp Fiction

You know, I thought that adding the car noise would make things funny, but it just made them sad. I guess you just can’t improve a classic. Especially when said classic has 265 F-bombs.

Hobo Speech

Look what I did! I gave people an excuse the ramble on in a semi-coherent manner. Yep, I made one of those mandatory assignment thingies.

Hobo Speech Tutorial

I even made a tutorial to go with it. Sure, it’s basically just rambling into a microphone and adding background noises, but now people will know how.

Where the first comment is

Where the second one is

This is the part that I’m not so good at: interacting with other human beings. I typically avoid that activity at all costs, but it seems mandatory here. I tried to give constructive criticism, since that’s what it seemed like I was supposed to do.

So, what did I learn this week? I got to learn all kinds of stuff about different filming techniques. All that rule of thirds stuff is kind of cool. I will definitely look for it in future movies I watch. I also got to brush up on my editing techniques. The trailer took me a lot longer than I expected. I forgot how long that type of stuff took. I actually liked this week beeter than the other ones. Light on the busy work, heavy on the actual learning.

This week was all about the sound. We had to listen to a bunch of stuff and then talk about that stuff. Yipee! Of course, we still had the Daily Creates and stuff.

#CarveATweetDay

A Death Poem

We also had some of those user submitted assignments. This we only had to do two! So, naturally, I cherry picked the easiest looking ones I could find.

Favorite Song: Face Melting Goodness

Here’s the first of those easy assignments. Here, I posted one of my favorite guitar solos. In case you couldn’t guess it, it’s Rainbow’s Stargazer.

Heavy Metal In Space

And then there’s the world’s most ridiculous poem. In a weird way, I’m actually kind of proud of it. Its so weird and cheesy, you can’t help but appreciate it. I actually spent a decent amount of time coming up with all the rhymes, too.

Next, I got to listen to these two radio guys I’ve never heard of. Then I got to post in my blog about the stuff I learned from their videos. Boy, aren’t I the luckiest?

Reflection of the Radio Stuff

You know, this week doesn’t seem to bad. No “blitz” assignment, only two audio assignments, pretty easy so far. Almost seems too good to be true.

Talking About the Story I Listened To: Getting Away With It

Ah, there it is. An entire hour of radio. Heck, most assignments don’t even take me an hour. I certainly didn’t spend that long writing about it!

Warning Poster Tutorial

Look, I even did one of those tutorial thingies. It has screenshots and everything. Since a certain someone felt the need to single out my warning poster in one of her videos, I decided to go with that one.

Oh, and I also commented on other people’s blogs. It had nothing to with those pesky participation points either. I did it because I wanted to. Sort of.

Where my first comment is

Where the other one is

Huh, some people actually put a lot of work into their assignments. Here I am, trying to get away with as little work as possible and there they are actually trying to get something out of the class. It’s kind of sad, really. Oh well, it’s their choice.

So, what did I learn this week? I learned that sounds and music can be used to separate ideas in radio. I never noticed that before, but now I can’t help but listen for it. Gone are the days when I would just sit back and listen to something. And it’s all thanks to DS106! Although I do feel like the differences between audio and written storytelling could have been capitalized on a bit more. Maybe we could listen to and read a similar story, and do a compare/contrast on the two. Just a thought. Other than that, good stuff.