Wednesday, May 4, 2016

New Media Final Project Acapella Maker

When we were deciding what we wanted our final project to be, I was not excited at all. I had no idea what I wanted to do and nothing was automatically coming to my mind. I just remember sitting in class one day and an idea coming to me, but I was still uncomfortable because I knew nothing about the tool. I just knew I liked whatever it was. I was stressed and one day I just started talking to my mom about the project. She told me to show her the video I saw on Facebook, and I immediately took her to Markus’s page. She looked at the video with me and noticed a hashtag. When I looked up the hashtag, I found Acapella Maker
I began testing the app and others, and I decided to stick with Acapella as my first option. The first day, I was so excited I did not take the time to read effectively and it literally took me three tries just to figure out why what I recorded previously kept playing on the other videos. The app clearly said, “Do you want to listen to one audio through all your recordings?” Later it said, “Do you want to play audio while recording?” I was just pressing yes! Clearly I was having problems, and I made the mistake of just singing and playing around instead of actually trying what I had intentions on doing which was sharing my poetry. But for some reason, I just knew my vision would work out after multiple tries.
The second day I decided to revisit the app, I knew what I wanted do with my poetry. I originally thought I was going to pick one of my poems and just break it up into different sections so it would be two videos of me reciting two parts of my poem. Then, I thought about an activity my teacher Susanna Rich had my poetry class do. My classmates and I each took turns reading one line from our poetry back after back which created a new poem. Inspired by that activity, I thought it would be so cool to take lines or a line from more than one of my poems and combine them to make another poem. So, I looked at a couple of my poems, picked out some lines, tweaked some of them, and I loved the poem that was produced. Now all I had to do was figure out how I wanted to split the poem up, and my vision would be complete. At least that is what I thought! After I split the poem up I kept trying to split my poem up with the app and make it legible, but I could not figure it out. And to be completely honest, in the process I got so occupied with the final product I just stopped writing and kept trying. I tried this and this plus a lot more this’s and I still was not satisfied. Eventually, I just gave up and realized my original plan might not work with poetry.
I was forced to keep trying, settle, or just be creative and for the rough draft I decided to settle. I wanted to show something that I was okay with. I knew that the end result might not be better, but I was still fixed on trying. I went to class knowing I would have to dedicate another day to this project.
And on the final day I tried, I just got really creative. Honestly, I believe God gave me ideas because everything was just there. I had all the props I needed without having to buy anything. And to say the end result was not what I originally wanted, I am happy with the aftermath. I showed my mom the final product, and she said it was weird and started laughing. I love it, and I just have a funny feeling that my class will like it as well.
Moreover, presenting my poetry in any type of way always makes me a little uneasy. I am okay if I present it on my own terms. Meaning, I do not have to do it for an assignment, and I am sharing it with people I want to share it with for example my Facebook friends. But, adding the public makes me more nervous and more critical. In the process, I became more focused on making things perfect and getting everything to come out the way I wanted it to. But as each day passes, I am starting to see more and more that what my teacher in high school said to me was right. I agree with the popular saying, “Things are not always going to go as planned.” I am learning to not become completely distraught. I will not say I regret trying to be creative with this app. I just learned trying to be creative with an app meant for singing made my task harder, and the device you use for example a phone or a tablet changes the outcome.



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