Narrative Visual Perspective in Digital Media

Movie Scores with Protools and Reason

Film Score 1 – Ben’s Theme
Film Score 2 – Final Theme
Film Score 3 – Rowan’s Theme

For our first narrative project, we were challenged to make a film score using Protools and Reason together. I’ll admit, I am not a very musical person and I don’t really like when we do music production in this class. It frustrates me to no end, nothing ever sounds right, and I don’t like using the programs. I also tend to feel rushed when I do them, as we have a time limit to learn and create, so I don’t get to mess around with the instruments as much. I did my best on this project, trying to make something good. These productions aren’t too bad, but maybe in the future I can make something that sounds nicer.

The names come from my narrative film, which you can watch under the film section of narrative 2. They were never used, but I was inspired by the characters to make the music.

A screenshot of my Protools workspace

Coding a Website

Coding had always been something I was adverse to. Ever since the coding unit in elementary school, I’ve hated coding. It was too much math, too specific, took too much work. The most I could handle was scratch, but the second I had to type anything myself, I was out. So when this project came around, I was dreading it

However, I found myself pleasantly surprised. When I coded a button to play Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” I had a huge smile on my face. When just typing a few words caused a box to change to a rainbow and fly around the screen, my eyes lit up. I had this idea of what coding was in my head, but the reality of it is very different. In fact, it fits right in with my perfection-minded detail-oriented brain. I barely finished my website coding by the deadline, but you may have noticed that when you first go to my website, there’s a photo of space and some music that plays. That’s my very own coding!

A screenshot of a piece of coding I did in dreamweaver

Multi-layer Art Project

I always love the art projects in digital media. I’m not a great artist, but I love making the art. I think digital art is super fun, and any project that involves it is an immediate favorite of mine. This one was a partner project. We chose a project from 3 options, and then created a layered art piece. I was partnered with Isabel Luk, and we choose to do an Arizona landscape. I did the last three layers, which were 2 different mountain scapes and then some clouds. I’m super proud of the mountains I created. I think they look really good! In the end, we stacked all our layers together to make one complete art piece out of laser cut wood.

A screenshot of my whole Illustrator file
A close up of my two digital art mountains
The finished product!

Reflection

Digital media this unit was a whirlwind. Music, coding, and laser cut layered art, three completely different projects. But that’s what makes Digital Media such an interesting and unique class. We learn so many different things every unit. When I’m stuck on a months long English paper or Film project, I know Digital Media will always bring something new and exciting that doesn’t need to be perfect. Digital Media is all about trying new things and gaining new skills. I never thought I’d like coding, but I got to devote so much time to it in Digital Media that now I really love it. Even if I hate music production, getting to do it every day and learn more about it has given me a new appreciation for it, and I had an easier time editing podcasts now that I had more Protools expertise. I can’t wait to see what the next projects are going to be!