Author Archives: Kaitlyn415

Video Project Proposal — Robo-rave

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For my video assignment, I’m going to keep chugging forward with the idea I had for the short video clips we made in our last class. I want to use robots and turntables to create some kind of remix, most likely a song of sorts. I will utilize the different sounds the robots make along with different music as the audio for my video. I hope to honor the late and great David Bowie in my video by using one of his songs, probably either Space Oddity or Under Pressure. I plan on using turntable footage I have already found that is creative commons and add in famous robot footage that I’ll most likely find on YouTube, like that of BB8, Robby the Robot, and Noo-noo (the Teletubbies robot). I’ll probably rip the audio tracks off of YouTube videos as well. The kind of reaction I’m looking for with this video is one of nostalgic joy and the usual amazement that accompanies someone watching something that seems out of this world. I want my video to take my viewers on an adventure where all their old robot buddies from their childhood and beyond get together and throw down a nasty beat. I still don’t know much about video editing techniques yet, but I know I’m going to need to learn how to lay a different audio track over a video track so that I can have the song in the background at all times. I plan on cutting up different scenes with robots in them to make it look like they’re all collaborating together to make a song. If I have enough time, I’ll try to have different video footage even for repeated parts of the song. I also hope to mess around in some of the after effects and see if I can find a way to fade my video in and out to go with the beat to my song. Hopefully it all works out for the best.

Blog 1 (Remix) : Emoji Dick

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An interesting example of a remix is Emoji Dick, which is a translation of the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville completely into popular IPhone emoji characters, thus creating a whole different story experience.

Original Moby Dick and Emoji Dick

The source media for my chosen remix is literature, as the entire story of Moby Dick is what is being remixed. Fred Benenson, the editor, along with over eight hundred human intelligence task workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk, was able to translate the complicated text of Moby Dick into the much simpler form of mini picture icons that we know as emoji. This brings in a lot of criticism.

Example of text-to-emoji translation of Moby Dick

Some people look at this remix and think of it as garbage and a telling example of how language is no longer appreciated in a society that utilizes abbreviations, slang, and emoji as staples in their conversations. Others see the value of this remix, and comment on how it can introduce a new generation to the past, thus preserving the story of Moby Dick. Sure, the outcome is somewhat comical, but that just adds to the charm. In the end, Emoji Dick is it’s own art project and comparisons between it and the original shouldn’t be used as a way to devalue its worth.

It’s hard to say whether or not this remix is inherently ridiculous or oddly beneficial to the literary world, but it definitely transforms the meaning of Moby Dick from being a boring, overwritten, bland book into something new, entertaining, and (surprisingly or not) much more likely to be read by the newer generations. While the story obviously has lost a lot—there are no perfect translations from text to emoji, especially considering that there is a limited amount of emoji character, so the plot has obviously lost depth (not that it had much depth to begin with though)—a lot has been gained. Besides, Emoji Dick includes the emoji translations next to the original text so that if the emoji aren’t clear enough to explain what’s happening the reader still can understand what’s going on. Moby Dick was desperately in need for a fresh face to market to a new kind of audience, and remixing it into something like Emoji Dick was a great way (it started as a kickstarter project and has reached much success) to keep an old piece of literature alive by bringing it up to the new communication standards of this generation.

Page out of Emoji Dick

http://www.emojidick.com/