For my poem I chose Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream within a Dream. I like the cadence and the surreal feeling it gives after being read. In my recording I decided to replicate the feeling I get from it by creating a dreamlike, surreal, and somewhat haunting feel.

To achieve this I pitched my voice low, high, and extremely low (to the point of incomprehensibility). I also slowed my reading down, just by a little bit. I then added the sound of wind, slowing it down, pitching it high and low, and repeating it a number of times. I finally added the ticking of a clock, slowing that down and pitching it low.

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe

Ideas for Project 2

I don't actually have a clear idea for my project yet. I'm thinking something with stop animation (or possibly just pictures to save time) using Legos in the real world. The story would be "epic" in nature.

Linkage

Link to second Blog

Responce 2

So, Scott McCloud talks about time frames showing us that how time is not static in a single cell. In other words, a series of moments can happen in a single panel. Using this idea I'm going to talk about two of our readings: Return to Sender and The Night of Melvin's Murder.

In Return to Sender the time frame is pretty much one second per frame. There are points in where it is possible that more than one second are going at once. This is often during conversation or action in regard to what someone else said. Aside from these moments however, it is one second per frame.

The Night of Melvin's Murder deals with time in a different way. You start off with the story of Little Johnny and what happened to him on the night Mr. Melvyn was murdered. You are then given hyperlinks with other names on them. Each name takes you to a different person and their story about what they were doing on the night Mr. Melvyn was killed. In this every "frame" of the story is happening at the same time.

Project 1: Final

For my project I decided to rewrite a World War II love letter/poem in a hieroglyphics system. I took my cue from Egyptian hieroglyphs, where most of the symbols do not refer to words, but rather ideas. In other words, one symbol holds the idea of war, battle, fight, etc.

The basic idea behind this is that when one reads they can infer the message based off the context, knowledge of the writer, and an understanding of the symbols used.

I looked at the letter and found the words (or rather ideas) that I would need to make. One thing that I did was have one symbol for any pronoun referring to oneself such as I, my, mine, etc. The same thing was used for second person pronouns (you, your, etc.). I also have specific symbols for things like Negative which refers literally to negating the word it is paired with. Another specific symbol is one for Clause which is for exactly what it sounds like. Sentences end with a vertical line and there are pause with horizontal lines.

With that in mind, I rewrote the love letter so that it was simplified, but still held the basic idea of the letter. An example is "I keep wishing I could be home with you" which becomes "I continue desire I home with you". For the most part it is symbol per word, except for the word "continue". This word is a combination of three symbols: Time+Negative+End, meaning "time that does not end". Therefore to make the word "continue" one must use the those three symbols together.

After coming up with the symbols and rewriting the letter, it was time to figure out how to write it. I experimented with multiple styles until coming up with one I liked. It is written in the common left to write, up to down, the only difference is that symbols grouped together are writtent vertically.

Finally for the image I decided to do most of the work non-digitally, writing by hand with a fountain pen. Then I wrinkled paper and scanned it in. Using Photoshop I aged, bloddied, and "burned" it to give it an old/wartime feel, since it is supposed to represent WWII. I also think that it adds another message as the destruction and staining gives the idea that it was the last letter written before the soldier died, which almost gives it it's own history.

The letter used says:

My dearest
I've missed you very very much since that last night we were together.
And will hold that night especially in my memories for years to come.
I've been turning it over and over in my mind lately.
I've read you're letter through at least 4 times.
And will probably read it more times before I'm through.
I've been sitting here looking at you're picture and getting more home sick every minute.
I've wanted that picture more than anything else I know of except of course you, you're self.
I keep thinking of you darling.
I keep wishing I could be home with you.
I want to leave in the worst possible way so I could come home to see you but, things don't look to good on that subject.
This war has spoiled a lot of things for everyone I guess.
I've never been so lonesome in my life as I am right now.
I'm completely lost without you darling.
I never realized I could miss anyone person so much.
I just hope it won't be too much longer till I'm able to be with you again and live a sane and normal life.

Almighty Chesus

Here is the power point project that was done in class

Thoughts of Project 1

I'm thinking of creating my own form of hieroglyphs that replace letters, thoughts, and words. I'm probably going rewrite civil war letters in this fashion.

I'm not sure if this actually works with the project. Also, I don't know if I need to add the translation of the hieroglyphs.