For my final project, I’m using photoshop to remix an image into a different meaning. Since I’m not totally familiar with photoshop, I thought I would do my tutorial on a basic skill that I’ll be using which is cutouts.

1. Open up Photoshop and open with the image that you want to cut out.
2. Next, you want to go to Layer, the New, and then press Background From Layer.
3. Next, you want to take the Quick Selection Tool and select the inside of the image that you want cut out.
4. Then, you want to go to Layer, then New, and then press Layer via Cut.
5. Finally, go to the bottom right corner and drag the image that says Layer 0 to the garbage can. This leaves you with the image you want cut out.

Then depending how sharp you want your edges to be, that can be altered as needed!

Public transportation is vital in any thriving and growing city that has a goal to create equality for all of it’s residents. Public transportation is the main means of transportation that people use to get to and from work or to gain access to certain public services. Majority of the time, the people who are using public transportation are low income people who don’t have the means to afford a car, insurance, gas, etc. It is important for a city to allow equal opportunity to it’s residents regardless of social status to be able to have access to things in and around the city. If a city fails to do this, it causes an even larger gap between the low and upper class people. Public transportation is mostly an issue discussed in public planning departments. I feel like the topic of public transportation and it’s weaknesses are not really focused on in other forms of media and that majority of people overlook the faults in the system.

An option for our group to do would be to re-plan the public transportation map in Pittsburgh, as well as implement a more technological advance in bus times and ways to pay. Another, less media way, to approach this topic is to also look at how affordable the bus system is for the people who use it everyday and how effective transfers are, etc. It is important to highlight the fact that sometimes a taking the bus to and from work can be a large portion of that person’s already probably limited paycheck. Forms of media that can be used, for example, would be indesign to re-plan the transit system. This could be possible with extending the T train that currently only operates downtown and to more affluent suburbs. The end goal, without cost being considered, would just to be able to create a more efficient and affordable transit system that allows people to easily get to and from work or other areas in the city.

For the Twine game that I decided to write about was “The Uncle Who Works fro Nintendo”. I felt like this Twine as a whole was very interesting and seemed to mirror a lot of the qualities of other Twines that I’v played so far for class. One thing that seems to be very similar with all the Twine games is that they all have a very dark background to them. They give out an eerie vibe of something bad happening and usually hint to death or destruction.

Throughout the entire game, you begin to notice after the first two or three slides of the game that you have an array of options to choose from. But it really doesn’t become completely evident until you get to the point of sitting in the Den with your friend waiting for the clock to strike midnight. During that time, there are upwards of five different options that you can choose which sometimes led to more options. In my opinion, I never really felt like any of the choices I was making were going to have any real consequences. At some points, I thought that if I chose one option over the other, I might have gotten into a fight with the friend I was with but besides that, nothing felt too drastic.

With this Twine, image plays a large part in the backdrop of the game. It’s always there behind the text and always toned town somewhat which gives the game and setting a more eerie feeling to it. Sound is used sparingly and is usually only prominent when the clock is striking at 12 indicating that it’s one step closer to midnight. I think these elements add to the dark feeling that the game is trying to convey. These elements, in my opinion, work well with one another. If the images were too bold or there were too many sounds being added in at every minute, it would’ve made the game feel tacky and not as dark.

Color throughout was very dark which seemed to suite the game very well. Font didn’t seem to play a large part of the game until the end when the until came in and the letters began to turn into symbols. I think the transition from letters to symbols added to the effect of feeling as if it was the person’s own computer malfunctioning which I think was a goal of the creators. Overall, I found this game to be somewhat boring, and that could easily be due to my need for something more intriguing to my mind. But I think the whole concept is really fascinating, but I’m not sure what I would change or do differently to make the actual game more captivating.

For my tutorial, I decided to show how to bleep out a section of sound from a part of the audio.

1. Import whatever sound being used.
2. Select the portion of the sound that you want to be bleeped out.
3. Then go to “Generate” and then click on “Tone”.
4. When you get to the little pop up box, change the settings to Frequency (Hz) to 1000 and Amplitude to 0.5.
5. After that is done, the selected part of the audio will look like a block and when played back, will just be a beeping sound.

For the collected sound that I decided to use was the shower sound. The sound simply consists of a shower going off in a steady stream. For a scene that I could imagine this sound being apart of would be a hot metal object being submerged in cold water or snow, resulting in a sizzling type of sound. This could be apart of a really dramatic scene that is set during the turn of the century when branding was still a popular practice. The scene could consist of a brander going to brand a horse or some sort of animal. And as the the brander goes in to brand the horse, a really intense animal activist, which aren’t highly popular at the time, comes bursting through the doors and begins fighting with the brander. They begin fighting and it gets really intense. Meanwhile, there is snow outside. As the fight begins to escalate, they push through the doors and end up outside. While the fighting is in progress, the branding iron is in the hand of the brander who tries to brand the animal activist. Once they hit outside, the animal activist ends up flipping the branding iron out of the brander’s hand and it goes flying into the snow. This creates a sizzling sound, aka the shower. Throughout the scene, there is screaming and some exchanging of words. Also, there is really dramatic music playing in the background to balance out with the other sounds of fighting. Majority of the sounds throughout the scene consist of shuffling, the sound of metal banging, a fire, and screeching sounds. I think the shower sound would compliment the sound of the hot iron spinning into the air and landing in the snow.

Limetown is a podcast very similar to the very popular podcast Serial. The podcast uses an array of sounds from helicopters, news broadcasts, several interviews, a narrator, and more. This intertwining of sounds allows for a stimulating mix of sounds to help make the podcast more interesting to listen to.

A moment of sound that I found interesting in Limetown was the mashup of news anchors reporting on the disappearance of the people of Limetown. This happens around the 3:00 time mark. This mashup allows for the listener to experience how big of an epidemic this was, since it was being broadcasted on multiple platforms with concern waving through the sound of the broadcasters voices.

I really enjoyed most parts of the podcast as a whole and how they utilized different sounds to make the listener feel as if they were there physically or actually watching Limetown as a television show. The sounds set for a very serious mood throughout the podcast which also better helps the listener understand the severity of the situation.

The one part of the podcast that I was not a fan of was the beginning interview. To me, it sounded very stale and set up. That was an aspect of sound throughout the podcast that I wasn’t a fan of and I felt like it hurt the mood and intent of the podcast rather than help it.

Overall, I really enjoyed the podcast and the use of sound to really capture the attention of the audience. When there are no visual aspects to something, the affect of sound plays a major role in how an idea or story comes across.

For my tutorial, I chose color editing.

1. Open Premier and begin a new project. Go to File/Import and import video being used. Then, go to File/New/Sequence and add in Sequence.
2. Once sequence is added, select a portion of the clip that you want to edit the color. Use the { } buttons to select portion of clip and then press Insert.
3. Next, click on Color in top bar.
4. It will bring you to a portion of Premier necessary for color correction.
5. Use the color wheels on the side and saturation levels to edit the color of the clip, being as dramatic or realistic as you want.
6. Once finished, click back on the editing button. Once back on the editing page, your clip will automatically stay the color you changed it to without affecting the other portion of the clips.In the end, I decided to go with a more dramatic approach to the color editing. The end!